Triage and transport of the critically ill child

Abstract

The aim of critical care transport services is the provision of care prior to and during transportation, similar to that offered in the tertiary care intensive care unit. This can only be achieved by a well prepared and equipped team dedicated to provision of this care. Appreciation of the disease conditions and adverse physiologic events likely to be encountered is necessary for the success of the team. Patient demographics and diseases in various geographic areas have been reported in the past few years. But, at the present time, team composition, responsibilities, and training requirements have not been well defined. In addition, there are no validated scoring systems to assist in team composition, triage of patients, or in the meaningful evaluation of mortality statistics. Within the next few years, one can expect to see genuine attempts made to address some of these issues.