Q What are the best practices around intrafacility transport of critically ill adult patients?

A Odette Comeau, DNP, RN-BC, CNS, CCRN-K, replies:

Intrafacility transport of critically ill adult patients is sometimes a medical necessity, as not all tests and treatments can be performed at the patient’s bedside. However, mobilizing critically ill patients incurs risk; patients may experience hemodynamic instability due to movement and transport equipment may malfunction. Other important considerations include human factors. Using an international reporting database, Yang et al1  explored human failure in an analysis of intrahospital transports. Human failures were present in 186 of 206 patient transport events. Process steps for transport included the decision to transport, arranging transport, preparing the team for transport, transport, and arrival/handoff. When the process steps were evaluated, the step “prepare transport team” had the most human failures. Examples of failures in this category included checklist not completed, equipment not prepared,...

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