NICU Special Transport Team

Special Team for the Smallest of Patients

By ground or by air, ready at a moment's notice
A Stat Air helicopter flew nearly 200 miles round trip to bring a premature newborn in for desperately needed specialty treatment. It is a scene repeated roughly twice a week as a special transport team for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) jump at a moment’s notice to bring fragile babies to Scott & White by ground or air ambulance.

“We’re averaging about 10 transports a month,” said Audrey Hubbard, director of children’s services at Scott & White. “We’re talking about some of the tiniest, most delicate and sickest patients you can imagine. When we’re called by a referring hospital, we go out, stabilize and transport that baby back to Scott & White for care.

One of the few providing NICU transport and Level III NICU care
Scott & White is one of only a handful of institutions in Texas providing NICU transport. As a Level III NICU, the highest level of this special care is available here. Hubbard said the next nearest Level III facility is Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, after that it is Dallas, Houston or San Antonio. Scott & White’s NICU measures in the top three percent in the world for helping desperately ill babies survive, and hopefully thrive.

This is a team formed from three NICU staff nurses and assisted by neonatal nurse practitioners and respiratory therapists. Staff nurses Amy Haas, Deanna Rodriguez and Debbie White are the current team.

Specially- trained nurses
Volunteers are recruited from staff nurses. A special month-long training provides the necessary skills, chiefly reading x-rays and intubating these miniature patients. When deployed, these nurses are the eyes and ears for physician specialists based at Scott & White, monitoring the situation as the transport follows its course.

“The hardest thing is going to these hospitals and you don’t know what situation you are going into,” said Debbie White. “Our goal is to stabilize the baby and get back to Scott & White, quickly.”

Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Hubbard says the ideal team size is five; but with only the current three nurses it works out to handling 10 days of call each month. NICU transport is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When the call comes in, the NICU transport team member brings all of their baby-sized equipment. They shuffle out an isolette on a stretcher that is equipped with a ventilator, the monitoring system and any special medications. All that is needed is power from the ambulance’s system.

Special accommodations and equipment
One of the team nurses and one of the respiratory therapists joins the ambulance crew for the ride. Often it is a flight on a Stat Air helicopter. The pilots have to make adjustments for the special ride. “From our perspective we have to change our weight and balance computations because these flights require a little more performance from the aircraft,” said Sam Oliver, lead pilot for the Killeen based STATAir One. “Equipment is different and the number of people we carry is different.”

Hubbard says the threat of burnout is very real, but the volunteer team – the members – draw strength and energy from their special calling.

“We’re very dedicated,” said White. “You feel good when you go to a hospital and pickup a baby who might not have made it; but because you got there and stabilized him maybe you will see him leave several weeks later. It’s just personal satisfaction.”

Related Links

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

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