Everyone has their own opinion of the device.... I know a lot of people and programs who love it, I however don't... I think it's an extremely expensive piece of plastic for a very limited number of speciality infant/neo transports. When you say they purchased it for field deliveries, you mean like newly born...? If so my question would be are you guys doing that many field deliveries to warrant the device or what is your mission profile/main use for it?
The primary indication would be doing a scene call where an infant is delivered. We're 1 - 1.5 hours by ground from a NICU capable facility or an academic hospital, 20 - 30 minutes from a community ED staffed by family medicine. We deliver less than 10 children in a year, but we have a low-income, high-needs population, that often has no prenatal care, high maternal risk factors, and a high incidence of risk-taking behaviour and drug use.
The intent is to place it on one front-line vehicle, and have it respond if we're going to be transporting. We have a long winter, with temperatures as low as - 40 C, and the thought is that this device with a warming pad will provide some limited thermal protection (for transfer to the vehicle, into the ED, etc.), and will allow us to secure an infant / neonate in a safe manner for transport. Our previous practice has been to restrain the mother and place the baby in skin-to-skin contact, while cranking the heat in the ambulance. I think that this is a common practice, but potentially disastrous.
We don't really do any IFT work. In prior instances where we've delivered children that have needed NICU care, we've transported to the local ER, and had the transport team collect them. Landing a helicopter in our local area, especially at night, is somewhat problematic, and our local NICU transport is more set up for scene calls with walls, than for landing on scene.
My old peds/neo program has one, was a beta test site, and now it sits in the storeroom and collects dust. We also have the access to multiple isolette's which are expensive and may not be an option for all programs so my opinion is based off having access to those resources. Let me know if you have additional/specific questions about the device.
Cheers,
Thanks for the information, this was exactly what I was looking for. I agree that it's expensive. I think we're just trying to do this in the safest manner possible, and had some spare money that could be used to purchase new equipment. This was identified as a need.
I'm trying to put together a continuing education package, that will probably touch a little on patient care. If you have any good resources, or specific safety issues or best practices that you can identify, it would be much appreciated. Mostly I'm just looking for some opinions from people who have more real world experience and expertise, as I have only spent a few hours in the NICU, and done a handful of calls with the transport team (mostly driving them around while looking impressed, as they RSI someone tiny with some horrible congenital abnormality).
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