Transport of a Prone Position ARDS Patient
airmedicaljournal.comCritical care transport of prone acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients is a feasible and cost-effective intervention that will help prevent treatment delays and interruptions.
A nonphysician critical care transport team (registered nurse and paramedic) can initiate prone positioning before transport. We report the case of a non-physician based critical care transport team (registered nurse and paramedic) that successfully initiated prone positioning of a severe acute respiratory distress patient prior to transport to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation capable teaching hospital.
With the increasing use of advanced treatments such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, prone positioning, and continuous renal replacement therapy for severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the necessity to transport these patients to specialized hospitals will correspondingly increase.