A hospital patient transporter moves patients by wheelchair, stretcher or bed between the ER, imaging, the lab, therapy and the inpatient unit, and wheels discharged patients out to their ride. Where staff are few, the job often adds specimen runs, equipment deliveries and help with lifts.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
We're hiring a patient transporter to move patients safely inside our hospital: from the ED to the inpatient unit, to imaging and therapy, and to the door at discharge. In a small hospital, the job often includes carrying specimens, equipment and supplies too. You'll check identity, watch lines and oxygen, and keep patients safe, warm and covered.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Move patients by wheelchair, stretcher or bed between the ED, inpatient unit, imaging, lab, therapy and outpatient areas.
Check the patient's identity and destination against the request before every move.
Check oxygen tanks, IV pumps and catheters before and during the move, and call the nurse about any problem.
Use brakes, side rails, safety belts and transfer devices, and get a second person when one person can't move a patient safely.
Take discharged patients to their ride and help them into the vehicle.
Carry specimens to the lab, and deliver equipment, records and supplies when asked.
Clean wheelchairs and stretchers after each use, and report broken equipment.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check transport requests and the day's scheduled tests and therapy visits.
Stage clean wheelchairs and stretchers in the ED and the main entrance.
Respond to stat transport calls from the ED and imaging.
Meet ambulance crews and walk them to patients being transferred to other hospitals.
Log each transport in [your system].
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Transport response time: [your target].
On-time arrival for scheduled tests: [your target].
Patient safety events during transport: [your target].
Equipment cleaned between uses: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
BLS certification within [30] days of hire.
High school diploma or equivalent [if you require one].
Courteous manner with patients who are sick, scared or confused.
Ability to follow safety, privacy and infection prevention rules.
6. Preferred Experience
CNA certification or patient care experience.
Experience in a hospital, nursing home or customer service job.
Training in safe patient handling or lift equipment.
7. Physical Requirements
Walk and push wheelchairs, stretchers and beds for most of the shift, including up ramps.
Help transfer patients with a coworker and lift devices, and lift up to [50] pounds.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Day or evening shifts, with weekends on a rotation: [schedule].
Movement through every area of the hospital, including the ED, imaging and outdoor entrances in all weather.
Exposure to infectious disease and bodily fluids, with PPE provided.
In many small hospitals, this job is combined with [environmental services, patient care or supply duties].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new patient transporter gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What's different about patient transport in a small hospital
A large hospital may run a transport team from a dispatch screen. At a 25-bed hospital, transport is often one person, or part of someone else's job, moving between a busy ER and a quiet inpatient hall.
Isolation patients travel covered
CDC's isolation guideline limits trips out of the room to what's medically needed. When a patient on contact precautions has to go, the infected area is covered. The transporter takes off used gloves and gown and cleans their hands before the trip, then puts on clean ones at the other end. Patients on droplet or airborne precautions wear a mask if they can. Call ahead so the receiving area is ready. Source: CDC: Guideline for isolation precautions (2007, updated September 2024, PDF).
Oxygen tanks come with training
Medicare's fire safety survey checks that staff who handle medical gas cylinders are trained on the risks. Cylinders are kept away from oil and grease and protected from damage, and empty ones are stored apart from full ones and marked. Show new transporters where full and empty tanks are kept and how empties are marked, so an empty one never goes out on a stretcher. Source: CMS: Fire safety survey report, 2012 Life Safety Code, health care (Form CMS-2786R).
A state law may set lifting rules
Washington's hospital law, which reaches critical access hospitals there, requires each hospital to run a safe patient handling program, have lift equipment, and train staff on it at least yearly. Staff who follow the hospital's procedure may refuse, in good faith, a lift or move they believe puts the patient or themselves at unacceptable risk, without being disciplined. Where no such law applies, the template still calls for a second person when one can't move a patient safely. Source: Revised Code of Washington 70.41.390: safe patient handling in hospitals.
Specimens ride in sealed containers
Without a courier on staff, the transporter often carries blood and other samples. OSHA's bloodborne pathogens standard says specimens go in a container that won't leak, closed before it moves. If the outside gets soiled, or the sample could poke through, it goes inside a second container. Use the bags and carriers the lab supplies, and take stat samples straight to the lab. Source: OSHA: 29 CFR 1910.1030, bloodborne pathogens.
One person, several jobs
In many small hospitals, transport is shared with EVS, supply or patient care work. That only works if the order is clear. A stat move from the ER beats a supply delivery, and a patient due in CT shouldn't wait on a mopped hallway. Write the priorities into the job, and tell the nurse manager when the combined load means trips start running late.
How much hospital patient transporters make
The closest BLS group for hospital patient transporters is orderlies. Orderlies who work for general medical and surgical hospitals earned a median of $18.42 an hour ($38,310 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $38,290 median for orderlies in all industries. About 43,940 of the 52,440 orderlies in that survey work for general hospitals.
Hourly, with evening and weekend differentials. When transport is combined with EVS, supply or patient care work, set one rate for the combined job and write the mix of duties into the offer.
General hospitals
$38,310$38,310 median Middle half $35,660–$44,580 10th–90th $32,850–$50,220
All industries
$38,290$38,290 median Middle half $35,570–$44,560 10th–90th $32,240–$50,600
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
General hospitals
$32,850
$35,660
$38,310
$44,580
$50,220
All industries
$32,240
$35,570
$38,290
$44,560
$50,600
These figures cover general medical and surgical hospitals of every size. Rural hospitals often pay less than city hospitals. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Checks the patient's name and birth date against the request before every move
Uses brakes, belts, side rails and lifts every time, even on a short trip
Notices when a patient looks worse on the way and stops to call the nurse
Patient and kind with people who are sick, scared, confused or in pain
Says nothing in halls and elevators about who they're moving or why
Teach these on the job
BLS, within the window your template sets
Your lifts, slide sheets, transfer belts and bariatric equipment
Isolation signs, and when to change gloves and gowns
How to read an oxygen gauge and spot an IV pump alarm, and who to call
The building: elevators, imaging rooms, the ambulance bay and the doors that lock at night
Your request system or transport log
Transporters use wheelchairs, stretchers, bariatric chairs, transfer belts, slide sheets and mechanical lifts, plus portable oxygen tanks in holders. Requests come by phone, pager, radio or a queue in the EHR, and each trip gets logged.
Hospital patient transporter interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Log every trip for a few weeks, then set the template's targets. Keep stat ER moves apart from scheduled trips, since each runs on a different clock.
Transport response time
Minutes from the request to the transporter at the patient's side, from your request system or a paper log. Report stat ER and imaging calls apart from routine moves.
On-time arrival for scheduled tests
Scheduled imaging, lab and therapy trips that arrived by the appointment time, divided by all scheduled trips. Ask the receiving department to note each late arrival and the reason.
Patient safety events during transport
Falls, near falls, pulled lines or tubes, empty oxygen tanks and wrong-patient moves, from your event reporting system. Review each one with the nurse manager within the week.
Equipment cleaned between uses
Spot checks of wheelchairs and stretchers in the staging areas: wiped with the approved disinfectant and tagged or logged as clean. Count clean ones over ones checked.
Career path
Customer service, retail or nursing home workGets used to helping strangers, often older adults, all day.
Patient TransporterMoves patients through the hospital and learns every department.
Close to it. The federal job classification puts transporters with orderlies: workers who move patients to places such as surgery or X-ray by wheelchair, stretcher or bed, and who may stock supplies and clean equipment. O*NET lists patient transporter, patient escort and radiology transporter among the titles reported for orderlies.
How much does a hospital patient transporter make?
Orderlies who work for general medical and surgical hospitals earned a median of $18.42 an hour ($38,310 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $35,660 and $44,580 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Does a patient transporter need to be a CNA?
Your hospital decides. The template calls for BLS soon after hire and lists a CNA or patient care experience as preferred. A CNA helps when the job includes lifts, toileting or covering the unit. Transport can also be a first hospital job for someone who earns a CNA later, if you offer the training.
Can a transporter adjust oxygen or silence an IV pump?
Keep both out of the transporter's job, and say so in your policy. Oxygen settings and IV pumps belong to the nurse or respiratory therapist. Before leaving, the transporter checks that the tank has enough for the trip and the pump is running. On the way, they watch both and call the nurse at once about an alarm or a low tank, so a helpful new hire never tries to fix it alone.
What should a transporter do if a patient falls during a move?
Stay with the patient, call for help and the nurse, and don't lift the patient back up alone. The nurse checks the patient before anyone moves them. Then the transporter writes up the event in your reporting system before the shift ends, including what the floor, the equipment and the lighting were like.
Should patient transport be combined with another job?
Often it has to be, as the template notes. Pair it with work that can stop mid-task, such as supply restocking, wheelchair cleaning or EVS rounds, and train the person in both jobs. Avoid work that can't be dropped when a call comes, such as running the tray line at mealtimes.
