Pediatric Transport Team

Mary Bridge Children’s neonatal and pediatric transport teams are committed to providing exceptional medical support for the pediatric and neonatal patients in our communities via ground or air (fixed and rotor wing). The team is capable of transporting from your facility to our Emergency Department, Pediatric Medical–Surgical Unit, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Our team of highly trained registered nurses and respiratory therapists are critical care trained and have safely transferred hundreds of seriously ill children and babies to Mary Bridge Children’s Level II Trauma Center and Mary Bridge Children’s Level IV NICU each year.

The advanced training and expertise of our pediatric and neonatal transport team allows for stabilization and care for the complex needs of pediatric and neonatal patients with life-threatening conditions or injuries related to (but not limited to):

• Emergency surgical services
• Heart failure and congenital heart defects
• Neurological disorders
• Respiratory illnesses
• Trauma
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Sepsis
• Neonatal emergencies

Ground ambulance transfer services

Our partnership with Northwest Ambulance affords us the capability to utilize our specialty ambulances with the proper equipment to care for the most critically ill children and neonates and safely transport them to the appropriate level of care they require. We are committed to getting to your hospital efficiently while partnering with your team for handoff and transfer.

Air transfer serves far-reaching Eastern and Western Washington

Mary Bridge Children’s and the Tacoma General NICU’s partnership with Airlift Northwest, a UW Medicine subsidiary, means the pediatric and neonatal transport teams can more quickly get to patients located in traditionally hard-to-reach areas — to the west along the Olympic Peninsula and regions east of the Cascades. Together with our long-standing ground transport service, our relationship with Airlift Northwest supports our commitment to greater access to our comprehensive medical and surgical services to pediatric patients across Washington.

Why Mary Bridge Children’s?

• We provide three to four times faster transport than ground for hard-to-reach areas with Airlift Northwest partnership
• Our 24/7 Neonatal Transport Team is trained to deliver immediate care when babies need it most – our specially equipped vehicles and helicopters transfer newborns from across the state of Washington directly to our Level IV NICU.
• The Neonatal Transport Team will respond to a referral facility and assist in the delivery room resuscitation, stabilization, and transport of the newborn.
• Mary Bridge Children’s NICU is the largest in Southwest Washington and the South Sound’s only Level IV NICU.
• Tacoma General’s Family Birth Center is the South Sound region’s most advanced referral center for high-risk pregnancies
• We transfer critical cases to Western Washington’s only Level II Pediatric Trauma Center
• By providing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO, which is a heart/lung machine), we can care for the most critical patients requiring the highest life support available. Mary Bridge Children’s is one of only two pediatric hospitals in Washington state to offer this highly specialized life-saving technology.