AST Guideline for Patient Transportation

1 Approved October 27, 2006 Revised November 4, 2014 Revised April 14, 2017 AST Guidelines for Best Practices for Patient Transportation Introduction The following Guidelines for Best Practices were researched and authored by the AST Education and Professional Standards Committee, and are AST approved. AST developed the Guidelines to support healthcare delivery organization’s (HDO) reinforce best practices in patient transport as related to the role and duties of the Certified Surgical Technologist (CST®), the credential conferred by the National Board of Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting. The purpose of the Guidelines is to provide information that OR supervisors, risk management, and surgical team members can use in the development and implementation of policies and procedures for patient transportation in the surgery department. The Guidelines are presented with the understanding that it is the responsibility of the HDO to develop, approve, and establish policies and procedures for the surgery department regarding safe transportation of patients per HDO protocols. Rationale The following are Guidelines for the safe transportation of surgical patients and recognizing the possible hazards to prevent injuries to the patient and CSTs. The recommended practices aid in ensuring the transfer and transportation of the patient without tissue injury; avoiding undue physical or emotional discomfort; and avoiding severe alterations in body temperature, respirations, and cardiovascular reactions including hypotension and tissue perfusion. 1 The Guidelines include recommendations for transporting critically ill patients from the source of care (e.g., ICU) to the surgery department. Evidence-based Research and Key Terms The research of articles, letters, nonrandomized trials, and randomized prospective studies is conducted using the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and MEDLINE®, the U.S. National Library of Medicine® database of indexed citations and abstracts to medical and healthcare journal articles. The key terms used for the research of the Guidelines include: coordinated patient transport system; critical care; health planning; intrahospital transfer; patient monitoring; policy making; transporting ICU patients; transporting surgery patients; Universal Protocol. Key terms used in the Guidelines are italicized and included in the glossary.