Critical Decision

Remote rural hospitals need to be prepared for a variety of medial emergencies. These include the unexpected arrival of premature or ill babies and children arriving with life threatening injuries or illnesses.

Within Scotland the provision of critical care services is centralised to ensure that these very ill patients can recieve the high quality of specialist care they require, delivered by experienced, highly qualified and skilled Medical and Nursing staff. This can mean that the distance and hence travelling times between remote and rural hospitals and critical care centres can be substantial. During this time the remote hospital tem must provide an appropriate level of care for the critically ill patient till the transport team arrives.

This is where video conferencing links could be utilised to allow the clinical staff both on the transport team and in the critical care centres, the opportunity to view the patient and give appropriate advice, to assist the local team. Telemedicine may also be used to assess what is the most appropriate resource tasked to transfer the child – i.e. Paramedics only, Paramedic/Local Nurse, Emergency Medical Retrieval Service or a full Neonatal/Peadiatric Transport Team.