Prevent Blood Clots
Prevent Venous Thromboembolism: One of our goals is to eliminate preventable deep vein thrombosis [DVT] and pulmonary embolism [PE], collectively known as venous thromboembolism (VTE) and commonly called "blood clots." Two million patients are diagnosed with DVT every year in the US. Up to half of these patients may not have symptoms until PE develops. There are 200,000 deaths annually due to PE. Our goal is to deliver appropriate VTE prophylaxis [prevention] to all of our patients: The first step is assessing a patient's risk of developing VTE. There are many tools available to do this. The one I like was developed by Dr Caprini and published in 2005. Risk assessment should be done at every physician visit especially if the patient's mobility is decreasing or other co-morbidities have developed. Once risk has been assessed, a plan including appropriate therapy to prevent VTE should be developed with the patient. Most hospitalized patients will pr