Impact of Specialty Neonatal-Pediatric Transport Teams

Regionalized neonatal and pediatric intensive care services improve patient outcome. Likewise, there is a potential benefit to infants and children from transport by teams with specialized neonatal-pediatric critical care training and experience who interact closely with experts at the tertiary care center.

As with other areas of pediatric health care, not all institutions or regions have access to a specialized neonatal-pediatric transport service. In locations where the available critical care transport team primarily serves adult patients, it may be desirable to have hospital-based neonatal or pediat­ric specialists accompany the team to provide additional expertise. Prior to the transport, however, hospital-based providers must be oriented to equip­ment and understand safety considerations. Such cooperative relationships should be extended proactively to include educational activities and case reviews, for the benefit of all parties involved.

In other regions, there may be multiple neonatal-pediatric transport services. In these locales, it is important that the services communicate and cooperate with each other. From the referring hospital's perspective, the use of common patient care protocols and procedures reduces variability and confusion and may improve customer satisfaction. Merging individual pro­grams into a regional transport consortium should be considered, with the expectation that a regional consortium may be more efficient and effective.