Determining the factors for interhospital transfer in advanced heart failure cases

There are some patients with advanced heart failure (HF), for whom implantable left ventricular assist device (LVAD) or heart transplantation (HTx) should be considered. Some of them need to be transferred between hospitals. There are few reports on the interhospital transfer of patients with advanced HF and their subsequent clinical course. In this study, we investigated the characteristics and clinical course of patients transferred to a LVAD/HTx center, focusing on the distance between hospitals. We retrospectively examined 141 patients who were transferred to our hospital, considering the indications of LVAD implantation or HTx. We divided the patients into two groups: those referred