Towards the full development of paediatric transport in Spain

Pediatric Critical Care Transport

“…Data from Spain, Portugal and Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Costa Rica, and Venezuela) showed that only 51.4% of hospitals have a system for training transport personnel, and only 36.4% of the training is specific to pediatric transport. 10,14 The aim of this survey was to described current practices for personnel training, equipment for pediatric-neonatal transport, transport team composition, characterization of critical care transport systems, and data registry. This information could help in the development of a prospective study in Latin America assessing in detail all aspects of pediatric transport and develop a regional consensus to standardize pediatric transport.…”

“…This reflects some of the characteristics of the health systems of the surveyed countries where for example more than half of the physicians that completed the survey reported that they have a transport coordination center; however, there is no unified transport system or a formal organization for the transport of the critical ill pediatric patients in the different countries. 14 This lack of protocols in pediatric transfers could increase adverse events and mortality of the patient. This could lead to not delivered important information of the transport.…”

“…The majority of physicians in this survey worked in public health care centers (81.6%), especially in tertiary and secondary health care hospitals. This reflects some of the characteristics of the health systems of the surveyed countries where for example more than half of the physicians that completed the survey reported that they have a transport coordination center; however, there is no unified transport system or a formal organization for the transport of the critical ill pediatric patients in the different countries 14 …”

“…There are studies that allow a regional view about pediatric transport in Latin America, most of these are based on surveys answered in different countries, these studies show weaknesses and strengths of the different transport systems; however, we believe that they do not reflect the regional problems about training and optimization of both human and technical resources in transport. Data from Spain, Portugal and Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Costa Rica, and Venezuela) showed that only 51.4% of hospitals have a system for training transport personnel, and only 36.4% of the training is specific to pediatric transport 10,14 …”