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. The team moves critically ill and injured infants and children between hospitals by ambulance and by helicopter. It is a primary transport service for referring facilities.

Transfers go to Advocate Children's Hospital at Oak Lawn or Park Ridge in Illinois. The Transfer Center takes requests from facilities across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, and most transports happen in the Chicagoland area. The Transfer Center is staffed 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It decides whether a patient goes by ground or by flight.

The team says it is the only pediatric and neonatal transport team in the Chicagoland area able to move patients who need ECMO. It is also one of the few critical care transport teams in Illinois that can start and carry patients on inhaled nitric oxide, sub-ambient therapy and neonatal high-frequency ventilation.

Each critical care transport team includes a registered nurse and a registered respiratory therapist. A paramedic and an emergency medical technician from Superior Ambulance join them. The nurses and therapists can perform advanced skills, such as intubation, needle cricothyrotomy, chest decompression and intraosseous placement.

Advanced therapies available during transport include high-frequency ventilation, prostaglandin administration, neonatal therapeutic hypothermia and external ventricular drain management. The team can also compound high-risk medications.

The team holds credentials such as pediatric advanced life support, neonatal resuscitation and Certified Neonatal Pediatric Transport. The transport medical director is a Certified Medical Transport Executive. The team uses the GAMUT database to compare its performance with other programs. Accreditation from CAMTS has been held since 2015.

A partnership with the pediatric and newborn team at Endeavor Health has helped the program assist with more transfers. Requests must come from health care providers. The team describes its approach as care focused on kids, with safety and family-centered care as constant values.

Services

• Neonatal and pediatric transport
• Ground and helicopter interfacility transport
• ECMO transport
• Inhaled nitric oxide transport
• Neonatal high-frequency ventilation transport
• 24/7 Transfer Center
• Advanced airway and critical care skills
• Continuing education
• Quality comparison with GAMUT database
• Partnership with Endeavor Health