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Improving hospital venous thromboembolism prophylaxis with electronic decision support.
J Hosp Med. 2012 Nov 26;
Authors: Bhalla R, Berger MA, Reissman SH, Yongue BG, Adelman JS, Jacobs LG, Billett H, Sinnett MJ, Kalkut G
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) disease prophylaxis rates among medical inpatients have been noted to be <50%. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a computerized decision support application to improve VTE prophylaxis. DESIGN: Observational cohort study. SETTING: Academic medical center. PATIENTS: Adult inpatients on hospital medicine and nonmedicine services. INTERVENTION: A decision support application designed by a quality improvement team was implemented on medicine services in September 2009. MEASUREMENTS: Effectiveness and safety parameters were compared on medicine services and nonmedicine (nonimplementation) services for 6-month periods before and after implementation. Effectiveness was evaluated by retrospective information system queries for rates of any VTE prophylaxis, pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis, and hospital-acquired VTE incidence. Safety was evaluated by queries for bleeding and thrombocytopenia rates. RESULTS: Medicine service overall VTE prophylaxis increased from 61.9% to 82.1% (P < 0.001), and pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis increased from 59.0% to 74.5% (P < 0.001). Smaller but significant increases were observed on nonmedicine services. Hospital-acquired VTE incidence on medicine services decreased significantly from 0.65% to 0.42% (P = 0.008) and nonsignificantly on nonmedicine services. Bleeding rates increased from 2.9% to 4.0% (P < 0.001) on medicine services and from 7.7% to 8.6% (P = 0.043) on nonmedicine services, with nonsignificant changes in thrombocytopenia rates observed on both services. CONCLUSIONS: An electronic decision support application on inpatient medicine services can significantly improve VTE prophylaxis and hospital-acquired VTE rates with a reasonable safety profile. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2012; © 2012 Society of Hospital Medicine.
PMID: 23184857 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]