Significantly more patients receive VTE prophylaxis after implementation of guideline-based protocol
TUESDAY, Aug. 11, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Introduction of a guideline-based protocol significantly increases compliance with guidelines for prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE), according to a brief report published online Aug. 9 in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.
Mehrdad Golian, M.D., from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and colleagues examined whether a guideline-based protocol improves VTE guideline compliance based on 10 single-day audits of a cardiology inpatient unit. Four hundred twenty patients at high risk for VTE were included (median age, 66 ± 14 years).
The researchers found that 36 percent of patients were not receiving VTE prophylaxis before the protocol, compared with 26 percent after the protocol (P = 0.024).
“There is a high rate of noncompliance with accepted guidelines for the prevention of VTE,” the authors write. “The introduction of a guideline-based protocol significantly increased compliance. However, a substantial proportion of patients at high risk for VTE still did not receive prophylaxis.”
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