Overview

This resource room is built on well-proven principles of quality improvement, evidence-based medicine as well as personal and institutional experiences. An in depth look at previous or ongoing efforts and resources followed by a redesign in process, work flow, and information transfer and sharing is needed in order to implement an effective team-based approach to prevent hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE).

The goal of this resource room is to enhance the efficiency and reliability of your quality improvement efforts to close the gap between best practice and what we actually do to prevent one of the most common causes of hospital deaths, hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE). In order to implement effective protocols and other QI strategies to minimize hospital-VTE in your institution redesign is needed in care delivery and performance tracking.

This Resource Room will enable you to implement effective protocols by providing you with information on:

You will also have access to:

• Education Resources
• Clinical Tools
• QI Basics
• Professional Development
• Exchange Information

Why Should You Act?

• PE resulting from DVT is the most common cause of preventable hospital death.¹
• A U.S. multicenter registry study showed the majority of hospitalized patients with risk factors for DVT did not receive prophylaxis.²
• The rate of fatal PE more than doubles between the ages 50 and 80 years.³

¹Bosker G, Poponick J, Emerman CL, Kleinschmidt K. The current challenge of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the hospitalized patient. Part II: Treatment and prevention of DVT and PE - evolving risk-stratification and prophylaxis strategies for hospital-based medicine. Accessed October 28, 2003.

²Goldhaber SZ, Tapson VF, for the DVT-FREE Steering Committee. A prospective registry of 5451 patients with ultrasound confirmed deep vein thrombosis. Am J Cardiol. 2004 Jan 15;93(2):259-62

³Hansson P-O, Sorbo J, Eriksson H. Recurrent venous thromboembolism after deep vein thrombosis: incidence and risk factors. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160(6):769-774.

Fundamental Principle for Venous Thromboembolism

A regular assessment of a patient's risk for VTE must be linked to a menu of appropriate prophylaxis options. This element is fundamental to any systematic effort to reduce rates of hospital acquired VTE.