Setting the Benchmark for the Ground and Air Medical Quality in Transport International Quality Improvement Collaborative

Severity-Driven Trends in Mortality in a Large Regionalized Critical Care Transport Service

OBJECTIVE

The epidemiology accompanying helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) transport has evolved as agencies have matured and become integrated into regionalized health systems, as evidenced primarily by nationwide systems in Europe. System-level congruence between Europe and the United States, where HEMS is geographically fragmentary, is unclear. In this study, we provide a temporal, epidemiologic characterization of the largest standardized private, nonprofit HEMS system in the United States, STAT MedEvac.

METHODS

We obtained comprehensive timing, procedure, and vital signs data from STAT MedEvac prehospital electronic patient care records for all adult patients transported to UPMC Health System hospitals in the period of January 2012 through October 2021. We linked these data with hospital electronic health records available through June 2018 to establish length of stay and vital status at discharge.

RESULTS

We studied 90,960 transports and matched 62.8% (n = 57,128) to the electronic health record. The average patient age was 58.6 years ( 19 years), and most were male (57.9%). The majority of cases were interfacility transports (77.6%), and the most common general medical category was nontrauma (72.7%). Sixty-one percent of all patients received a prehospital intervention. Overall, hospital mortality was 15%, and the average hospital length of stay (LOS) was 8.8 days ( 10.0 days). Observed trends over time included increases in nontrauma transports, level of severity, and in-hospital mortality. In multivariable models, case severity and medical category correlated with the outcomes of mortality and LOS.

CONCLUSION

In the largest standardized nonprofit HEMS system in the United States, patient mortality and hospital LOS increased over time, whereas the proportion of trauma patients and scene runs decreased.

Tracking national neonatal transport activity and metrics using the UK Neonatal Transport Group dataset 2012-2021: a narrative review

There are no internationally agreed descriptors for categories of neonatal transports which facilitate comparisons between settings. To continually review and enhance neonatal transport care we need robust categories to develop benchmarks. This review aimed to report on the development and application of key measures across a national neonatal transport service. The UK Neonatal Transport Group (UK-NTG) developed a core dataset and benchmarks for transported infants and collected annual national data. Data were reported back to teams to allow benchmarking and improvements. From 2012 to 2021, the rate of UK neonatal transfers increased from 18 to 22/1000 live births despite a falling birth rate. Neonatal transfers on nitric oxide increased until 2016 before plateauing. The proportion of transport services able to provide high frequency oscillation and servo-controlled therapeutic hypothermia increased over the study period. High-flow nasal cannula oxygen use increased, becoming the most frequently used non-invasive respiratory support mode. For infants <27 weeks of gestational age, transfers for uplift of care in the first 3 days of life have fallen from 420 (2016) to 288 (2020/2021) and for lack of neonatal capacity from 24 (2016) to 2 (2020/2021). The rate of ventilated infants completing transfer with CO2 out of the benchmark range varied from 9% to 13% with marked variation between transport services' rates of hypocapnia (0-10%) and hypercapnia with acidosis (0-9%). The development of the UK-NTG dataset supports national tracking of activity and clinical trends allowing comparison of patient-focused benchmarks across teams.

Interfacility Transport of Critically Ill Patients

OBJECTIVES

To assess recent advances in interfacility critical care transport.

DATA SOURCES

PubMed English language publications plus chapters and professional organization publications.

STUDY SELECTION

Manuscripts including practice manuals and standard (1990-2021) focused on interfacility transport of critically ill patients.

DATA EXTRACTION

Review of society guidelines, legislative requirements, objective measures of outcomes, and transport practice standards occurred in work groups assessing definitions and foundations of interfacility transport, transport team composition, and transport specific considerations. Qualitative analysis was performed to characterize current science regarding interfacility transport.

DATA SYNTHESIS

The Task Force conducted an integrative review of 496 manuscripts combined with 120 from the authors' collections including nonpeer reviewed publications. After title and abstract screening, 40 underwent full-text review, of which 21 remained for qualitative synthesis.

CONCLUSIONS

Since 2004, there have been numerous advances in critical care interfacility transport. Clinical deterioration may be mitigated by appropriate patient selection, pretransport optimization, and transport by a well-resourced team and vehicle. There remains a dearth of high-quality controlled studies, but notable advances in monitoring, en route management, transport modality (air vs ground), as well as team composition and training serve as foundations for future inquiry. Guidance from professional organizations remains uncoupled from enforceable regulations, impeding standardization of transport program quality assessment and verification.

Intensivtransport Neugeborener mit respiratorischem Versagen

Hintergrund und Ziel der Studie

Der Transport von Früh und Neugeborenen mit respiratorischem Versagen ist mit einem hohen Transportrisiko assoziiert und stellt höchste Anforderungen an medizinisches Personal und technische Ausrüstung. Eine kontinuierliche Überprüfung der Qualität ist daher unumgänglich. Ziel dieser monozentrischen retrospektiven Analyse ist es, die Mortalität transportierter Neugeborener mit respiratorischem Versagen mithilfe eines Outcomescores, Transport Risk index of Physiologic Stability, Version II, (TRIPS-II-Score) und im Vergleich zu bereits publizierter Literatur zu analysieren.

Methodik

Es wurden 79 Intensivtransporte von Früh- und Neugeborenen mit hochgradigem respiratorischem Versagen retrospektiv analysiert. Zur Einschätzung des Transportrisikos und der Transportqualität wurde der TRIPS-II-Score erhoben und mit der Literatur verglichen.

Ergebnisse

Insgesamt wurden 77 Patienten luft- (n = 56, 73 %) oder bodengebunden (n = 21, 27 %) transportiert. Zwei Patienten verstarben vor dem Transport. Kein Patient verstarb während des Transports. Alle Patienten mussten invasiv beatmet werden, davon 22 (29 %) mit Hochfrequenzoszillation (HFOV) und 55 (71 %) erhielten inhalatives Stickoxid (iNO). Der mittlere Oxygenierungsindex (OI) betrug 33 [4-100, min.-max.] Insgesamt mussten 24 Patienten (31 %) nach Aufnahme einer ECMO-Therapie unterzogen werden. Insgesamt verstarben 20 (26 %) Neugeborene, 7 davon in der ECMO-Therapie-Gruppe.

Schlussfolgerung

Transporte von Neugeborenen mit schwerem Lungenversagen können durch den Einsatz eines spezialisierten Teams mit Sonderequipment meist komplikationslos durchgeführt werden. Die scheinbar sehr hohe Mortalität ist mit Daten der internationalen Literatur vergleichbar.