GUIDELINES FOR THE TRANSFER OF CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS

Objective: The development of practice guidelines for the conduct of i ntra- and interhospital transport of the critically ill patient. Data Sources: A task force of experts in the field of patient transport dra wn from the membership of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and th e American Association of Critical-Care Nurses provided the personal e xperience and published literature from which these guidelines were de veloped. Study Selection: Study design was not a factor in selecting t he literature to validate the experts' personal experience. The lack o f well-designed clinical outcome studies was an important factor in de termining the method of practice policy development we utilized. Data Extraction: The expert task force met and developed a draft of these g uidelines based on their experiences and the available literature. Thi s draft document was then reviewed by an additional group of experts w hose input was used by the task force to develop this final consensus report. Data Synthesis: Each hospital should have a formalized plan fo r intra- and interhospital transport that addresses the following elem ents: pre-transport coordination and communication, transport equipmen t, accompanying personnel, monitoring during the transport, and docume ntation. The transport plan should be developed by a multidisciplinary team and should be evaluated and refined by the continuous quality im provement process. Conclusion: The available data have allowed us to d evelop an evidence-based practice policy for the intra- and interhospi tal transport of the critically ill.