[Intrahospital transportation of critical patients]

Critically ill patients often need to be transferred for a short period of time for diagnostical or therapeutical reasons to other areas outside the intensive care unit which are less safe than their own unit and suppose a potential risk of deterioration in the patient's status. We analyse prospectively the intrahospitalary transfer in 50 patients and study the hemodynamic, ventilatory and neurological variations before and after the transfer. 93.7% of our patients were transferred for diagnostical reasons, basically to the radiodiagnosis service (85.4% for TAC performance), only 6.25% were transferred for therapeutical reasons, all of them to the operating theatre. All the patients included in the study were subjected to: -mechanic ventilation, electrocardiographic monitoring (ECG), invasive arterial monitoring (TA), monitoring of arterial saturation of O2 using pulsioximetry, drugs infusion through volumetric bombs and intracraneal pressure monitoring through intra-ventricular catheter (in 18 cases). The intrahospitalary transfer was performed with: -Portable ventilator, ECG monitoring, TA, PIC and pulsioximetry. Before and after the transfer different parameters were registered: -Inspiratory fraction of O2 (FiO2), TA, cardiac frequency, PIC, arterial gasometry (pH, PAO2, PACO2). There were no complications in any of the cases, the gasometric alterations were due to the change of respiratory parameters for the transfer (increase of the FiO2 and prophylactic ventilation in all the cases). We recommend: -Use of the portable ventilator, volumetric bombs, hemodynamic monitoring and uninterrupted pulsioximetry and the presence of qualified staff (doctor and ICU nurse) during the transfer.