Equipment review: Intrahospital transport of critically ill patients

Table 1 Synopsis of investigations studying overall and specific complications during transport

Reference	No. of	No. of	Destination of	Rate of	Circulatory	Pulmonary	Equipment	Type of ventilation
	patients	transports	transports	mishaps	mishaps	mishaps	mishaps	personnel
[3]	11 Postoperative	11	Radiol 11%	0%	0	NR	NR	Manual ventilation in
								7 of 11, Personnel NR
[4]	139 Children	180	Radiol 30%	76.1%	HR 46.7%	RR 28.9%	10%	Manual ventilation
			OR 49%		BP 21.1%	SaO₂ 6.1%		Nurse and physician 82.2%
			Others 21%		Hypothermia 10%			Nurse only 17.8%
[5]	27 Head injured	35	Radiol 51%	51%	Hypotension 9%	Hypoxia 9%	NR	Mechanical ventilator
			OR 49%		Rise in ICP 23%			Personnel NR
					Hypertension 14%
[6]	NR	127	Radiol 75%	34%	NR	NR	34%	Type of ventilation NR
	(all critically ill)		OR 25%					Nurse and physician 45%
								Nurse and respiratory
								therapist 58%
[7]	56 Injured	103	Radiol 100%	68%	HR 21%	RR 20%	0%	Mechanical ventilation
					BP 40%	SaO₂ 17%		Nurse and physician
[8]	83	100	Radiol 100%	66%	HR 27%	RR 20%	5%	Mechanical ventilation
	Surgical/trauma				BP 36%	SaO₂ 2%		Nurse, physician and
								respiratory therapist
[9]	175 Surgical	203	Radiol 61%	5.9%	Hypotension 1%	Hypoxia 4%	NR	Mechanical or manual ventilation
			OR 39%		Cardiac arrest 1.5%			Physician and respiratory therapist
[10]	237 All critically ill	237	Radiol 100%	15.5%	NR	NR	NR	Specially trained nursing
								transport team
[11]	36 All critically ill	36	Radiol 100%	53%	Arrhythmia 5.5%	NR	11%	Mechanical ventilation
[12]	20 Medical/surgical	20	Radiol 100%	10%	0%	10%	0%	Manual ventilation
								Respiratory therapist
[13]	20 Medical/surgical	36	Radiol 100%	NR	Hypotension 19%	Change in pCO₂ 56%	5.5%	Manual ventilation in 20 of 36
					Arrhythmia 5.5%			Nurse, physician and
								respiratory therapist

Not included are studies that compared specific transportprotocols or equipment. BP, change in blood pressure; HR, change in heart rate;ICP, intracranial pressure; NR, not reported; OR, operation room; Radiol,radiology department; RR, change in respiratory rate; SaO₂, fall ofarterial oxygen saturation.

ISSN: 1364-8535