Pediatric emergency transport: communication and coordination are key to improving outcomes

Abstract

Pediatric patients who are critically ill or who require urgent subspecialty evaluation or specialized imaging, equipment, or procedures must often be transferred to tertiary care centers. The safe execution of interfacility transfer requires the coordination between the facility healthcare teams at each end of the transfer as well as the transport team. This issue discusses the process of interfacility transfer, the required services, the role of the emergency clinician, the role of the pediatric transport team, and the commonly used diagnostic studies and treatment needed during interfacility transfers of pediatric patients.