Applying for Accreditation

Neonatal and pediatric specialty teams in the United States provide transport in several different ways:

• The dedicated team has its own identity and operates its own aircraft or ambulance or contracts with an operator (for air and/or ground).

• The dedicated team may contract with another medical transport service(s) for the mode of transport. This medical transport service may be part of the same health care system or it may use a community based private ser­vice (not part of any health care system).

• The team could be nondedicated in that medical professionals from a neonatal intensive care unit or pediatric intensive care unit occasionally accompany a patient during transport (from one hospital to another hospi­tal with a higher level of care or a back-home transport where the patient, who is no longer critically ill, is returned to a local community hospital).

Currently, 90% of the accredited services transport pediatric or neo­natal patients or both according to one of the examples listed previously. The first 2 examples in that list are eligible to apply for CAMTS accredita­tion even if they contract with another transport service for the aviation or ground ambulance. Of the 152 services currently listed as accredited, 6% are dedicated children’s transport teams that are CAMTS accredited under their own identity.

There is currently a pool of 60 site surveyors who are independent con­tractors and perform at least 2 site visits per year. Site surveyors must have at least 4 years of current experience in the medical transport profession as medical, communication, or aviation professionals and must have a manage­ment background. Site surveyors are interviewed and selected based on their level of experience and positive interface with the selection committee dur­ing interviews. If selected, site surveyors are then required to attend a course provided by the Board of Directors before being assigned to a site visit with an experienced surveyor.

To apply for CAMTS accreditation, a transport service would request an initial application and then:

1. Complete the initial application.

2. Return it to the CAMTS office with a $750 application fee.

3. The program then receives a Program Information Form (PIF) by email. The PIF includes a Standards Compliance Tool. This is a self­study document that asks the program to score compliance with each of the standards and requires certain attachments to be included with the submission. In addition, the program completes a demographic section that incudes statistics for the previous year.

4. The program has up to 1 year to complete the PIF.

5. The PIF and the attachments are submitted electronically.

6. A Safety Culture Survey is emailed to each employee. These surveys are submitted anonymously and tabulated electronically to evaluate the safety culture of the service about to be site visited.

7. A site visit will be scheduled within 4 to 6 weeks of receiving the PIF.

8. An accreditation decision will be made at the next Board of Directors meeting. The Board meets 4 times a year.