Intrahospital Transport of Critically Ill Patients: Critical Care Nurses’ Perceptions

Abstract

Purpose : This study aimed to identify the status of intrahospital transport (IHT) of critically ill patients and provide baseline data to form recommendations for safer transport. Methods : Data were collected from 141 intensive care unit (ICU) nurses who attended national conferences between February and August, 2018. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA, and post-hoc analysis was conducted with the Scheffé and Games-Howell tests. Results : Of the nurses surveyed, 61.7% answered that their workplace had a transport guideline. In terms of the experience of ICU nurses, 31.2% of respondents answered that they had received training on IHT. This result indicated that the degree of implementation of the guidelines for IHT was generally high, but some, including guidelines on personnel, equipment, and monitoring, were not. Guidelines of IHT were well observed when the institutes had specific guidelines for IHT of critically ill patients with specified transport grades, a scoring system to assess stability of a patient, a checklist and a protocol for action in case of problems, and when healthcare providers were provided with training. Conclusion : These results suggest that organized infrastructure, such as a transport guideline with transport grades, a checklist to improve the implementation of guidelines, and a protocol for coping with a problem, should be provided for safe transport. Additionally, effective education and evaluation to improve the competency of staff participating in the transport of patients will help reduce the occurrence of adverse events in intensive care transport in hospitals and promote patient safety.