Increasing the Rate of Venous Thromboembolism Chemoprophylaxis Administration Using the Electronic Medical Record

Introduction: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) remains a leading cause of preventable harm among hospitalized patients. Pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis reduces the rate of in-hospital VTE by 60%, but medication administration is often missed for various reasons. Electronic medical record (EMR) prompts may be a useful tool to decrease withholding of critical VTE chemoprophylaxis medications. Methods: In August 2021, an EMR prompt was implemented at a tertiary referral academic medical center mandating nursing staff to contact a provider for approval before withholding VTE chemoprophylaxis. A pre-intervention group from August 2020 to August 2021 was compared to a post-intervention group from August 2021 to August 2022. Rates of VTE chemoprophylaxis withholding were compared between the groups with a P < .01 considered significant. Results: A total of 16,395 patients prescribed VTE chemoprophylaxis were reviewed, with 13,395 (81.7%) receiving low molecular weight heparin. Of the 16,395 patients included, 10,701 (65.3%) were medical and 5694 (34.7%) were surgical. Patients in the pre-intervention cohort (n = 8803) and post-intervention cohort (n = 7592) were similar in hospital length of stay and duration of DVT prophylaxis. In the post-intervention group, the frequency of surgical patients with at least one missed dose had increased by 4.2% (P = .002), with the trauma and acute care surgery (TACS) show an increase of 6.6% (P < .001). However, the frequency of medical patients and non-TACS patients with missed doses decreased by 3.1% (P = .002) and 1.0% (<.001), respectively. Conclusions: EMR prompts appear to be a low-cost intervention that increases the rate of VTE prophylaxis administration among medical and elective surgery patients.

Effectiveness of a Patient Education Bundle on Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis Administration by Sex

INTRODUCTION

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a frequent cause of preventable harm among hospitalized patients. Many prescribed prophylaxis doses are not administered despite supporting evidence. We previously demonstrated a patient-centered education bundle improved VTE prophylaxis administration broadly; however, patient-specific factors driving nonadministration are unclear. We examine the effects of the education bundle on missed doses of VTE prophylaxis by sex.

METHODS

We performed a post-hoc analysis of a nonrandomized controlled trial to evaluate the differences in missed doses by sex. Pre-intervention and intervention periods for patients admitted to 16 surgical and medical floors between 10/2014-03/2015 (pre-intervention) and 04/2015-12/2015 (intervention) were compared. We examined the conditional odds of (1) overall missed doses, (2) missed doses due to patient refusal, and (3) missed doses for other reasons.

RESULTS

Overall, 16,865 patients were included (pre-intervention 6853, intervention 10,012), with 2350 male and 2460 female patients (intervention), and 6373 male and 5682 female patients (control). Any missed dose significantly reduced on the intervention floors among male (odds ratio OR 0.55; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.44-0.70, P < 0.001) and female (OR 0.59; 95% CI, 0.47-0.73, P < 0.001) patients. Similar significant reductions ensued for missed doses due to patient refusal (P < 0.001). Overall, there were no sex-specific differences (P-interaction >0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Our intervention increased VTE prophylaxis administration for both female and male patients, driven by decreased patient refusal. Patient education should be applicable to a wide range of patient demographics representative of the target group. To improve future interventions, quality improvement efforts should be evaluated based on patient demographics and drivers of differences in care.

Alert-Triggered Patient Education Versus Nurse Feedback for Nonadministered Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis Doses: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Many hospitalized patients are not administered prescribed doses of pharmacologic venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Methods and Results In this cluster-randomized controlled trial, all adult non-intensive care units (10 medical, 6 surgical) in 1 academic hospital were randomized to either a real-time, electronic alert-triggered, patient-centered education bundle intervention or nurse feedback intervention to evaluate their effectiveness for reducing nonadministration of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Primary outcome was the proportion of nonadministered doses of prescribed pharmacologic prophylaxis. Secondary outcomes were proportions of nonadministered doses stratified by nonadministration reasons (patient refusal, other). To test our primary hypothesis that both interventions would reduce nonadministration, we compared outcomes pre- versus postintervention within each cohort. Secondary hypotheses were tested comparing the effectiveness between cohorts. Of 11 098 patient visits, overall dose nonadministration declined significantly after the interventions (13.4% versus 9.2%; odds ratio [OR], 0.64 [95% CI, 0.57-0.71]). Nonadministration decreased significantly (P<0.001) in both arms: patient-centered education bundle, 12.2% versus 7.4% (OR, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.48-0.66]), and nurse feedback, 14.7% versus 11.2% (OR, 0.72 [95% CI, 0.62-0.84]). Patient refusal decreased significantly in both arms: patient-centered education bundle, 7.3% versus 3.7% (OR, 0.46 [95% CI, 0.37-0.58]), and nurse feedback, 9.5% versus 7.1% (OR, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.59-0.86]). No differential effect occurred on medical versus surgical units. The patient-centered education bundle was significantly more effective in reducing all nonadministered (P=0.03) and refused doses (P=0.003) compared with nurse feedback (OR, 1.28 [95% CI, 1.0-1.61]; P=0.03 for interaction). Conclusions Information technology strategies like the alert-triggered, targeted patient-centered education bundle, and nurse-focused audit and feedback can improve venous thromboembolism prophylaxis administration. Registration URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT03367364.