Advocate Children's Hospital Transport Program

The Advocate Children's Hospital Transport Program is the neonatal and pediatric transport team of Advocate Children's Hospital in the Chicago area of Illinois. It is a hospital programme that moves ill and injured babies and children by ambulance and by helicopter.

Services

The team does transfers between hospitals to Advocate Children's Hospital at Oak Lawn or Park Ridge. Its Transfer Center takes requests for patients across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, and most transports are in the Chicago area. The center is staffed 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and it chooses ground or flight transport.

The site says the team is the only pediatric and newborn transport team in the Chicago area able to move patients who need ECMO. It can also start and carry patients who need inhaled nitric oxide, sub-ambient therapy and neonatal high-frequency ventilation.

Crew and aircraft

A critical care transport team has a registered nurse and a respiratory therapist. A paramedic and an EMT from Superior Ambulance join them. For helicopter flights, the Part 135 certificate holder is Metro Aviation, Inc. The site names no aircraft type or count.

Team members hold credentials such as pediatric advanced life support, neonatal resuscitation and Certified Neonatal Pediatric Transport. A partnership with the pediatric and newborn team at Endeavor Health lets the programme help with more transfers. It also joins a national quality database to compare its results with other programmes.

Facts

• Type: hospital programme of Advocate Children's Hospital
• Accredited by CAMTS since 2015, according to the programme
• Helicopter operator: Metro Aviation, Inc.
• Requests must come from health care providers