Practice Management Guidelines for the Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism in Trauma Patients: The EAST Practice Management Guidelines Work Group

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) has taken a leadership role in the development of evidenced-based practice guidelines for trauma. 1 These original guidelines were developed by interested trauma surgeons in 1997 for the EAST Web site (http://www.east.org), where a brief summary of four guidelines was published. A revised, complete, and significantly edited practice management guidelines for the prevention of venous thromboembolism in trauma patients is presented herein. The step-by-step process of practice management guideline development, as outlined by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), has been used as the methodology for the development of these guidelines. 2…