Medical transport of neonatal and pediatric patients provides many unique challenges.
Perhaps nothing is more demanding than trying to provide optimal critical care in the poorly controlled confines of a mobile environment during air and ground medical transport. This is especially true with respect to considerations related to altitude and flight physiology.
The prevalence of medical helicopters and airplanes within pediatric health care delivery systems makes it more likely for children to be transported longer distances more quickly for evaluation and treatment of critical illnesses and injuries. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of flight physiology is essential for the transport team to provide optimal patient care in the aeromedical setting. This objective is intensified, because the normal physiological responses to a changing altitude are further complicated when transporting an already compromised child or infant The patient, the flight crew, the transport team members, and some medical equipment may be affected by the changes in the partial pressures of gases at altitudes above sea level.
Altitude physiology and the stresses of flight may have their greatest impact during fixed-wing transport; however, helicopter transport is not immune from these stresses. An understanding and knowledge of many of these same stresses is also beneficial for transport personnel who use ground ambulances. With this in mind, we are no longer dealing only with altitude or flight physiology. More appropriately, the topic might be referred to as “transport physiology and the stresses of transport.”