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Dissection of the retrieval times of a centralised transport service, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Mohamed E. Abdel-Latif (latifme{at}yahoo.com)
  1. Royal Hospital for Women, Australia
    1. Andrew Berry (latifme{at}yahoo.com)
    1. New South Wales newborn and paediatric Emergency Transport Service (NETS), Australia

      Abstract

      Objectives: To examine the transport times of immediate and emergency retrievals for neonatal and paediatric patients retrieved by ground and air from general hospitals to tertiary centres.

      Designs: We conducted a database review of the records of 17,011 requests for retrieval to a centralised transport service in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia from 2000 to 2006.

      Results: Immediate and emergency retrievals included 4,575 (43.7%) neonatal and 5,887 (56.3%) paediatric retrievals. The median stabilisation time was 97 mins for neonatal compared to 50 mins for paediatric retrievals. Neonatal retrievals had significantly longer stabilisation time (~x2), handover time (~x1.2) and mission time (~x1.3) compared to paediatric retrievals.

      Conclusions: Establishing reference times for the transport process is a valuable quality assurance tool. Such data will be valuable for staff and budgeting purposes and for evaluation of new interventions that reduce retrieval times.

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