Interstate Inter-facility Medical Transport

Purpose

To inform policy decisions surrounding interstate inter-facility medical transport of patients.

Inter-facility transport is an essential part of the modern healthcare system. It connects isolated communities with quaternary care centers – thus improving access to care. Crossing state lines complicates this process, especially when one state refuses to acknowledge another state’s clinicians at the same level causing delays in patient care.

This is an ecological study that looks at paediatric patient transports by zip code. Study will use measures of central tendency and spatial analysis methods to quantify patient movement between states with particular focus on the regulatory barriers between jurisdictions.

Research Protocol

Pilot

This study starts by looking at transport fro one facility in one state: Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD.. This level 1 trauma center services patients in Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Delaware, and even southern Pennsylvania. Their commitment to children and proximity to their neighboring states makes this an ideal place to start.

Coming Soon
Regional Variations

Next transports will be looked at in two vastly different regions: the DMV (D.C. - Maryland-Virginai) and the state of Texas. The DMV is one of the regions in the nation where interstate movement is common for employment, travel, and education. Texas is a state so large, most residents never leave.

Coming Soon
Nationwide

The final stage of this study will look at transport across the nation. Using spatial analysis techniques and geographic information systems, we hypothesis the movement of patients is statistically significant and that the data collected will help inform policy to improve the well-being of children from coast to coast.

Coming Soon