AHRQ updates guidelines for preventing hospital-associated VTE

Editor's Note

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has updated its “Preventing hospital-associated venous thromboembolism [VTE]: A guide for effective quality improvement.” The guidelines were originally published in 2008.

The update includes:

• new and improved metrics for tracking the adequacy of VTE prophylaxis
• good and bad aspects of implementing electronic health records
• more examples of tools to illustrate clinical decision support
• lessons learned from starting, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining a VTE prevention strategy. 

Pulmonary embolism resulting from deep vein thrombosis-collectively referred to as venous thromboembolism-is the most common preventable cause of hospital death. Pharmacologic methods to prevent venous thromboembolism are safe, effective, cost-effective, and advocated by authoritative guidelines, yet large prospective studies continue to demonstrate that these preventive methods are significantly underused.