Because of challenges involved in transferring patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms from one facility to another, the Western Vascular Society has adopted a set of 15 guidelines on how to make that decision and help standardize care.
Read about the guidelines plus the selection and development process behind them in the March issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery.
Some patients with a ruptured AAA initially come to a facility “ill-equipped to provide care,” the Journal authors wrote. And in the western United States, long travel distances and times provide challenges and barriers to get the prompt, appropriate care the patient needs, they said.
These guidelines are widely applicable and are particularly important in “areas with significant geographic distance between the sending and receiving institutions,” authors said.