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ObjectivesTo assess recent advances in interfacility critical care transport.Data sourcesPubMed English language publications plus chapters and professional organization publications.Study selectionManuscripts including practice manuals and standard (1990-2021) focused on interfacility transport of critically ill patients.Data extractionReview of society guidelines, legislative requirements, objective measures of outcomes, and transport practice standards occurred in work groups assessing definitions and foundations of interfacility transport, transport team composition, and transport specific considerations. Qualitative analysis was performed to characterize current science regarding interfacility transport.Data synthesisThe Task Force conducted an integrative review of 496 manuscripts combined with 120 from the authors' collections including nonpeer reviewed publications. After title and abstract screening, 40 underwent full-text review, of which 21 remained for qualitative synthesis.ConclusionsSince 2004, there have been numerous advances in critical care interfacility transport. Clinical deterioration may be mitigated by appropriate patient selection, pretransport optimization, and transport by a well-resourced team and vehicle. There remains a dearth of high-quality controlled studies, but notable advances in monitoring, en route management, transport modality (air vs ground), as well as team composition and training serve as foundations for future inquiry. Guidance from professional organizations remains uncoupled from enforceable regulations, impeding standardization of transport program quality assessment and verification.

Objective: To provide clinicians with evidence-based strategies to optimize support of the family of critically ill patients in the ICU.Methods: We used the Council of Medical Specialty Societies principles for the development of clinical guidelines as the framework for guideline development. We assembled an international multidisciplinary team of 29 members with expertise in guideline development, evidence analysis and family-centered care to revise the 2007 Clinical Practice Guidelines for Support of the Family in the Patient-Centered Intensive Care Unit. We conducted a scoping review of qualitative research that explored family-centered care in the ICU. Thematic analyses were conducted to support Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (PICO) question development. Patients and families validated the importance of interventions and outcomes. We then conducted a systematic review using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) methodology to make recommendations for practice. Recommendations were subjected to electronic voting with pre-established voting thresholds. No industry funding was associated with guideline development.Results: The scoping review yielded 683 qualitative studies; 228 were used for thematic analysis and PICO question development. The systematic review search yielded 4158 reports after de-duplication and 76 additional studies were added from alerts and hand searches; 238 studies met inclusion criteria. We made 23 recommendations from moderate, low and very low level of evidence on the topics of: communication with family members, family presence, family support, consultations and ICU team members, and operational and environmental issues. We provide recommendations for future research and work-tools to support translation of the recommendations into practice.Conclusions: These guidelines identify the evidence base for best practices for family-centered care in the ICU. All recommendations were weak, highlighting the relative nascency of this field of research and the importance of future research to identify the most effective interventions to improve this important aspect of ICU care.