title: The American Association for Thoracic Surgery Consensus Guidelines: Reasons and purpose.
abstract: The time interval for the doubling of medical knowledge continues to decline. Physicians, patients, administrators, government officials, and payors are struggling to keep up to date with the waves of new information and to integrate the knowledge into new patient treatment protocols, processes, and metrics. Guidelines, Consensus Guidelines, and Consensus Statements, moderated by seasoned content experts, offer one method to rapidly distribute new information in a timely manner and also guide minimal standards of treatment of clinical care pathways as they are developed as part of bundled care programs. These proposed Consensus Guidelines advance The American Association for Thoracic Surgery's mission of leading in cardiothoracic health care, education, innovation, and modeling excellence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. Electronic address: svenssl@ccf.org.
authors.forename: Lars G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Svensson
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio.
authors.forename: A Marc
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Gillinov
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Weisel
authors.affiliation: Division of Thoracic Surgery, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Shaf
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Keshavjee
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York, Columbia University, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Emile A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Bacha
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Mo.
authors.forename: Marc R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.
authors.forename: Duke E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Cameron
authors.affiliation: Division of General Thoracic Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Sugarbaker
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.
authors.forename: David H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.
authors.forename: J William
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Gaynor
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Texas Heart Institute/Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.
authors.forename: Joseph S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Coselli
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac Surgery, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, Mass.
authors.forename: Pedro J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Del Nido
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.
authors.forename: Thoralf M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Sundt
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.
authors.forename: Lawrence H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Cohn
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Hospital Cinco de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Jose L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Pomar
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano, Plano, Tex.
authors.forename: Bruce W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Lytle
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
authors.forename: Hartzell V
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Schaff
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D032921:Consensus; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000592:standards; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000592:standards*; D012955:Societies, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D013903:Thoracic Surgery / Q000193:education / Q000592:standards*; D019616:Thoracic Surgical Procedures / Q000193:education / Q000592:standards*
keywords: guidelines