Road trips and resources: there is a better way

Description

Background: Transport of critically ill patients for diagnostic and/or therapeutic management involves significant consumption of resources. In an effort to improve the delivery of care to these patients and decrease resource utilization, Hill-Rom (Batesville, IN, USA) have developed a self-contained device (CarePorterTM) designed to provide both intensive care unit (ICU) support and transport capability. We hypothesized that the use of the CarePorter when compared with a standard or specialty bed (with transfer to a stretcher) would decrease the number of personnel and time required for transport without altering the current ICU standards of care. Results: Over a 3 month period, 35 ventilated patient transports were divided into the following groups: specialty bed to stretcher (n = 13), standard bed (n = 9) and CarePorter (n = 13). The APACHE II score at the time of transport was not different between the groups, nor was the ongoing care being delivered. The CarePorter group had a statistically greater fractional inspiration of oxygen and positive end expiratory pressure, when compared with the other two groups (P < 0.05). The use of the CarePorter device decreased the number of personnel required to transport a patient (2.1 ± 0.3 vs 3.6 ± 0.5 for the standard bed and and 3.2 ± 0.7 for the specialty bed; P = 0.0001). The CarePorter also decreased the number of resources utilized for the preparation of a patient for transport (P = 0.001) when compared to the other groups. This was primarily due to the transfer of patients from specialty beds to a stretcher. Overall respiratory therapy time was also much less with the CarePorter (5.9 ± 5.7 min), when compared with the standard (26 ± 10 min) or specialty bed (22 ± 11 min) (P = 0.0008). In addition, the CarePorter group also had a higher nursing satisfaction score with the overall transport (P = 0.008). Conclusions: Use of the CarePorter device resulted in maximization of the delivery of patient care, time savings, significantly improved utilization of escort personnel

Resources

Name Format Description Link
21 Visit the original government dataset for complete information, documentation, and data access. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC28995/

Tags

  • resource-utilization
  • nih
  • ventilated-patients
  • intrahospital-transport
  • critical-care-transport

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