Documenting surgical triage in rural surgical networks: Formalising existing structures

OBJECTIVE: It is essential that the embedded process of rural case selection be highlighted and documented to provide reassurance of rigour across rural surgical services supported by generalist surgeons, general practitioners with enhanced surgical skills and general practitioner anaesthetists. This enables feedback and improves the triage and case selection process to ensure the highest quality outcomes. Therefore, this research aims to explore participants' rational criteria for decision making around rural case selection. DESIGN: Participants participated in a series of semi‐structured in‐depth interviews which were coded and underwent thematic analysis. SETTING: Six community hospitals in British Columbia, Canada. PARTICIPANTS: General practitioners with enhanced surgical skills, general practitioner anaesthetists, local maternity care providers, and specialists. RESULTS: Based on participant accounts, rural surgical and obstetrical decision‐making processes for local patient selection or regional referral had five major components: (1) Clinical Factors, (2) Physician Factors, (3) Patient Factors, (4) Consensus Between Providers and (5) the Availability of Local Resources. CONCLUSION: Decision‐making processes around rural surgical and obstetrical patient selection are complex and require comprehensive understanding of local capacity and resources. Current policies and guidelines fail to consider the varying capacities of each rural site and should be hospital specific.