title: Medication Administration in Critical Care Transport of Adult Patients with Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Critical care transport (CCT) teams must manage a wide array of medications before and during transport. Appreciating the medications required for transport impacts formulary development as well as staff education and training. Problem As there are few data describing the patterns of medication administration, this study quantifies medication administrations and patterns in a series of adult CCTs.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a retrospective review of medication administration during CCTs of patients with severe hypoxemic respiratory failure from October 2009 through December 2012 from referring hospitals to three tertiary care hospitals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two hundred thirty-nine charts were identified for review. Medications were administered by the CCT team to 98.7% of these patients, with only three patients not receiving any medications from the team. Fifty-nine medications were administered in total with 996 instances of administration. Fifteen drugs were each administered to only one patient. The mean number of medications per patient was 4.2 (SD=1.8) with a mean of 1.9 (SD=1.1) drug infusions per patient.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results demonstrate that, even within a relatively homogeneous population of patients transferred with hypoxemic respiratory failure, a wide range of medications were administered. The CCT teams frequently initiated, titrated, and discontinued continuous infusions, in addition to providing numerous doses of bolused medications.
authors.forename: Susan R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Wilcox
authors.forename: Mark S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Saia
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Waden
authors.forename: Susan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: McGahn
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frakes
authors.forename: Suzanne K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Wedel
authors.forename: Jeremy B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D000280:Administration, Inhalation; D000285:Administration, Rectal; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017732:Air Ambulances; D000552:Ambulances; D003422:Critical Care; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004632:Emergency Medical Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000628:therapy; D007262:Infusions, Intravenous; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010360:Patient Transfer; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D012131:Respiratory Insufficiency / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000628:therapy; D012189:Retrospective Studies
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations