Abstract: Objective: To study the risk of intra-hospital transport in emergency patients and its related factors. Methods: A total of 1 025 adult patients admitted to the emergency room from April 2017 to May 2017 were enrolled. We recorded patients' diagnosis, vasoactive medication use, mechanical ventilation status, transit time, and specialty destinations. Meanwhile, we observed the changes of vital signs and consciousness before and after transport. NEWS risk level increased or single item score increased to 3 points after transport was defined as the criteria of patients' condition change, then we stratified the transport risk for all patients. Results: There were 15.0% of patients who experienced changes in the conditions severity after transport. Changes in respiration and oxygen saturation were obvious. Patients transferring to ICU have higher risk of condition change than others. Those with respiratory disorders and multiple organ failure had the highest risk of transports. The transport risks in patients with one and two kinds of vasoactive drugs were 1.587 times and 4.343 times of that in patients without vasoactive drugs. Conclusion: Transport risk does exist in the emergency patients' transit, in which the respiration and oxygen saturation are most likely to change. The severity of the disease, the use of vasoactive drugs and the type of disease are closely related to the risk of transit in emergency patients.

Key words: emergency patients; intra-hospital transport; risk; NEWS