Advances in emergency cardiac care mean that more patients are being discharged within hours of catheter-based interventions, and their complications are happening at home. This course provides first responders with tools to analyze post-cath risks and make defensible transport decisions.
Objectives:
• List potential acute complications of catheter-based cardiovascular interventions, given a review of vascular access techniques, hemorrhagic strokes, and triple-therapy blood thinners, so that a different diagnosis can be formed.
• Recognize acute limb ischemia, given a case study patient with a catheter-associated femoral artery occlusion, so that patient morbidity is lessened.
• Defend patient transport to a cardiovascular intervention-capable hospital, given a case study patient with a vascular access point bleeding complication, so that patient survival is optimized.
