Mission Statement

There will always be enhancements to how the clinical outcomes of criti­cally ill neonates, infants, and older children can be managed and improved. Ensuring that all children, regardless of where they live, have access to the latest and greatest offerings of specialized hospitals requires expert and timely interfacility transport.

The goal of neonatal and pediatric interfacility transport is to bring specialty hospital quality of care to the bedside of patients who are not in proximity to a tertiary care facility and to ensure safe transfer to the hospital that will provide their definitive care. Transport services must ensure patient, family, and staff safety while incorporating, whenever possible, state-of- the-art practices and technology. Many patients are at their sickest during transport. Transport providers often have a real opportunity to influence the course of illness of patients and to improve their outcomes.

On behalf of all who contributed, the editorial team hopes that the infor­mation and guidelines in this book will help enable health care professionals providing interfacility transport of children to complete this important work.