Relation between the time of the transport team in reaching the bedside of children and the 30-day mortality rate after admission.

Abstract

Background: China's medical system has not yet issued quality control indicators related to the transfer of critically ill children, and when transport teams receive a transfer request for these children, due to various reasons, the time to arrive at the bedside varies. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the time taken by the pediatric intensive care transport team to reach the bedside of children after receiving a transport request on the prognosis of these children.

Methods: Clinical data of 298 critically ill children admitted to Anhui Children's Hospital through long-distance transport from March 2020 to February 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Pediatric patients were divided into three groups according to the time taken by the transport team to reach the bedside after receipt of a transport request: the ≤60, >60 to ≤180, and >180 min groups. The 30-day mortality of children after admission (0= no, 1= yes) was used as the dependent variable for multivariate logistic regression analysis, with the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) indicating the relation between the time taken by the transport team to reach the bedside and the 30-day mortality rate after admission. P<0.05 indicated a statistically significant difference.

Results: During the study period, there were 298 children for whom transports were requested, 50 (16.8%) of whom died within 30 days after admission. The limited evidence revealed that the time taken by the transport team to reach the bedside of children was not significantly related to the 30-day mortality rate after admission in Anhui Children's Hospital (P>0.05).

Conclusions: The time taken by the transport team to reach the bedside of children is not associated with the 30-day mortality rate after admission into the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).