Abstract
Objectives: To measure the impact of a standardized risk assessment tool and specialty-specific, risk-adjusted venous thromboembolism (VTE) order sets on compliance with American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) guidelines and the number of symptomatic VTE as assessed by administrative data. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Academic hospital inpatient rehabilitation unit. Patients and Participants: All patients on the rehabilitation unit. Methods and Interventions: Assessment of VTE risk factors and evaluated admission VTE prophylaxis orders before and after implementation of an ACCP guideline-based, specialty-specific VTE risk assessment, and prophylaxis order set by using a standardized data collection form. Main Outcome Measures: Discharge diagnostic codes for VTE and pulmonary embolism were tracked by ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases, 9th edition) discharge diagnosis codes for the 12 months before and 36 months after the intervention. Results: Before implementation of the VTE order set, 27% of patients received VTE prophylaxis in compliance with the 2004 ACCP VTE guidelines. By following implementation of specialty-specific, risk-adjusted VTE order sets, compliance increased to 98%. In the year before VTE order-set implementation, the number of VTEs per admission was 49 per 1000. By following implementation, the number of VTEs steadily decreased each year to 8 per 1000 in 2007 (χ2 = 14.985; P = .0001). Conclusions: Implementation of a standardized VTE risk assessment tool and prophylaxis order set resulted in a substantial improvement in compliance with ACCP guidelines for VTE prophylaxis and was associated with a 6-fold reduction in the number of symptomatic VTEs in a hospital-based rehabilitation unit.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1111-1115.e1 |
Journal | PM and R |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2011 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation
- Rehabilitation
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology