Currently there is an underuse of guideline-recommended prophylaxis in medical and surgical patients at risk for venous thromboembolism. Adoption of hostipal-wide protocols and periodic audits could improve prophylaxis processes.
Abstract
Background
Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis is suboptimal in the US despite long-standing evidence-based recommendations. The aim of this subset analysis of the Epidemiologic International Day for the Evaluation of Patients at Risk for Venous Thromboembolism in the Acute Hospital Care Setting (ENDORSE) study was to identify characteristics of hospitals with high guideline-recommended prophylaxis use.
Methods
Between September and November 2006, charts from eligible patients aged ≥40 years with an acute medical illness or age ≥18 years and undergoing a surgical procedure were reviewed from randomly selected US acute-care hospitals. Hospitals were ranked based on the proportion of at-risk patients who received American College of Chest Physicians–recommended types of prophylaxis. Hospital characteristics were compared to determine factors related to more frequent prophylaxis use. Hospitals were followed up 1 year after the chart audit.
Results
Overall, 9257 patients were evaluated from 81 hospitals. Appropriate types of prophylaxis were prescribed to more at-risk patients in hospitals in the highest quartile compared with the lowest quartile of prophylaxis use (74% vs 36%). All quartiles had a similar percentage of at-risk patients (61%-65%). Significantly more hospitals in the highest quartile had residency training programs (43% vs 5%), a larger median number of beds (277 vs 140), and had adopted hospital-wide prophylaxis protocols (76% vs 40%). In the follow-up survey, more hospitals overall had adopted hospital-wide written guidelines for venous thromboembolism prevention.
Conclusions
These findings support the value of hospital-wide protocols and local audits for VTE prevention, as recommended by several national quality-of-care groups.
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— Frederick A. Anderson Jr, PhD, Samuel Z. Goldhaber, MD, Victor F. Tapson, MD, Jean-Francois Bergmann, MD, Ajay K. Kakkar, MD, Bruno Deslandes, MD, Wei Huang, MS, Alexander T. Cohen, MD, ENDORSE Investigators
This article originally appeared in the December 2010 issue of The American Journal of Medicine.
