Ticket to Ride, STAT, SPHM, throughput - the words of the job, defined the way the profession uses them.
Twenty-six terms every healthcare transporter hears in week one - defined the way the profession uses them.
The healthcare professional who moves patients, specimens, and equipment through a facility - by wheelchair, stretcher, or bed - safely and on schedule.
The coordination function (person or software) that assigns transport requests to transporters by priority, location, and availability.
A single dispatched task: move a specific patient or item from an origin to a destination. The basic unit of transport work.
A request with the highest urgency - performed immediately, ahead of the routine queue.
Minutes from a request being placed to the transporter arriving at the patient. A core department metric.
Total minutes from request to completed trip, including the move itself and the handoffs at both ends.
The written handoff document that travels with the patient - identity, destination, precautions, oxygen needs, and anything the receiving team must know.
Confirming a patient's identity with two independent identifiers (typically name and date of birth) before every transport - a Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal.
The structured exchange of responsibility and information between caregiver and transporter, or transporter and receiving team, at each end of a trip.
The isolation categories (Contact, Droplet, Airborne) layered on top of standard precautions for patients with known or suspected infections - each with its own PPE and transport rules.
Personal protective equipment - gloves, gowns, masks, eye protection - donned and doffed according to the patient's precaution category.
Safe patient handling and mobility: the equipment-first discipline (slide sheets, transfer boards, mechanical lifts) that prevents handling injuries to staff and patients.
A dedicated, specially trained and equipped team for high-risk patient moves - the specialty recognized by the CHT-LT endorsement.
Moving patients of size using rated equipment, planned routes, and team staffing - never standard equipment at its limits.
Moving a patient under continuous cardiac monitoring, with the monitoring and clinical escort requirements the facility's policy defines.
The calculation every transporter must know: remaining cylinder pressure versus flow rate equals minutes of oxygen - checked before the trip, not during it.
The movement of patients through the hospital - admission to bed to procedure to discharge. Transport is the connective tissue of the whole system.
The rate at which the hospital moves patients through their care journey. Slow transport equals slow throughput equals full beds.
Admitted patients held in the emergency department because no inpatient bed is ready - the visible symptom of broken flow.
A staffed area where discharged patients wait for rides, freeing inpatient beds hours earlier.
Healthcare Patient Transporter certificate - the self-paced online entry credential and on-ramp to the CHT pathway.
Certified Healthcare Transporter - the profession's recognized certification, earned through three tiers: CHT-1 technical skills, CHT-2 ethics and behavior, CHT-3 strategic thinking.
Certified Healthcare Transporter Instructor - the credential that authorizes a leader to train and certify CHTs at their own facility.
Certified Patient Transport Management Professional - the apex management credential of the ITC/NAHTM system, launching at NAHTM 2027.
The National Association of Healthcare Transport Management - the professional association for transport leadership and host of National Transport Week.
A post-CHT specialty credential (lift team, dispatcher, pediatric, infection control, and more) recognizing advanced scope in one domain.
The competency self-checklist tells you where you stand today.
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