To understand and mitigate infant patient vibration exposure during emergency ground and air transport

每年，加拿大有成千上万的新生儿通过空中或地面救护车接受专门的医疗护理。这些婴儿往往是早产儿，在运输过程中尤其脆弱。运输过程中的振动暴露可能会导致严重的长期后果，包括脑损伤。为了减少运输过程中的风险，使用了专门的设备。然而，婴儿所经历的振动水平及其影响因素尚不清楚。这种知识的缺乏影响了以最安全的方式运送新生儿患者的能力。我们的目标是通过减少振动来提高婴儿运输的安全性。我们提出了一项研究计划，旨在了解道路和空气环境引起的振动是如何传递给婴儿的。这将使我们能够提出新的方法来减少振动暴露并改进运送脆弱婴儿的设备。我们将测量许多运输场景中的振动，包括医院、地面救护车、直升机和飞机。结果将用于开发测试设备和评估运输设备的程序。这项研究将有助于更好地了解问题，并为测试运输设备和程序提供可靠的方法。它将带来新的工具，用于规划最小化振动的路线和监测患者的振动。我们的研究汇集了儿科和工程方面的专业知识，以研究解决这一问题的新方法。该团队包括卡尔顿大学的工程师和大型儿童医院的医生（渥太华的CHEO，多伦多的SickKids）。这些医生代表一个省级委员会，其任务是提供建议和建议，以提高安全性、护理质量以及患者和家属的体验。这种合作将确保结果传达给能够影响积极变化的临床医生。

Each year, thousands of newborns in Canada are transported by air or ground ambulance toreceive specialized medical care. These infants are often premature and especially vulnerableduring transport. Vibration exposure during transport may contribute risk of serious long-termconsequences including brain injury. To decease risk during transport, specialized equipmentis used. However, vibration levels experienced by infants and contributing factors are not wellunderstood. This lack of knowledge affects the ability to transport newborn patients in thesafest manner possible.Our goal is to increase the safety of infant transport by reducing vibration exposure. Wepropose a research program which seeks to understand how vibrations caused by the roadand air environments are transferred to the infant. This will allow us to propose novel methodsto reduce vibration exposure and improve the equipment for transporting fragile infants. Wewill measure vibrations in many transport scenarios including within hospitals as well as inground ambulances, helicopters, and airplanes. The results will be used to develop testequipment and procedures for evaluating the transport equipment. This research will enablebetter understanding of the problem and provide a reliable way to test the transportequipment and procedures. It will lead to new tools for planning routes that minimize vibrationand for monitoring patient vibration.Our research brings together expertise in pediatrics and engineering to study novel solutionsto this problem. The team includes engineers from Carleton University and physicians fromlarge childrens hospitals (CHEO in Ottawa, SickKids in Toronto). The physicians represent aprovincial committee tasked with providing advice and recommendations to improve safety,quality of care, and the patients and familys experience. This collaboration will ensure thatthe results are communicated to the clinicians who can impact positive change.