Introduction: Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) is the term used to describe blood clots in the deep veins. It is considered to be a significant healthcare topic due to the high incidence in hospitalised patients. National body in the UK (NICE) recommends risk assessment, the appropriate prescription of thromboprophylaxis and the provision of patient information to all patients over the age of 18 years admitted to hospital. Despite the introduction of national guidance, patients develop hospital related VTE. It is therefore essential to establish compliance of VTE prevention policy and provide recommendations where improvements are necessary. Purpose: To assess current practice within an acute hospital in reducing the risk of VTE in patients admitted to hospital against NICE guidance and to identify methods of improvement to ensure adherence to VTE prevention guidelines. Materials and methods: A local audit was carried out using a tool which was designed to measure clinical practice against national standards for VTE prevention. PDSA cycle was used for a systematic process to be followed. A snapshot sample of 60 inpatient records was selected to be audited on medical and surgical wards of an acute trust. Data was analysed using excel, histograms were produced and percentages calculated to identify adherence of VTE prevention policy in practice. Results: The audit found that 67% (n=40/60) audit proformas were completed in the allocated time frame; 88% (n=35) of patients had a recorded risk assessed for VTE and bleeding on admission to hospital. Only 18% (n=7) of patients in the audit received verbal information on VTE prevention on admission and none received written information. Furthermore, 10% (n=4) of patients who required anti- embolism stockings did not receive them and 40% (n=16) of patients did not receive appropriate chemical thromboprophylaxis. Conclusion: Risk assessment and administration of prevention methods can considerably reduce the risks of patients developing VTE thus enhancing patient safety and quality of care provided by the healthcare sector. This audit demonstrates inconsistencies in providing correct VTE prevention methods to patients throughout an acute hospital trust and highlights key recommendations for improvement.
Introduction: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) has been defined by many professionals as the term to describe deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). It is a condition where a thrombus (blood clot) forms in the deep veins usually the lower limbs. DVT can often propagate to the lungs causing PE which can result in significant health complications including instant fatality. The disease occurs in 1 in 20 people in the United Kingdom (UK) at some point during their life time Purpose: To investigate the prevalence of VTE in a South London hospital over a period of 3 years. The objectives of the study were to explore the characteristics of VTE by examining potential correlations with demographic variables of gender, age and ethnicity. Another objective was to distinguish between hospital-associated VTE and community-associated VTE and to identify prevalent types of VTE. Materials and methods: This was a retrospective, quantitative study using convenience sampling. Records of 1728 patients diagnosed with VTE between 1st January 2014 and 31st December 2017 were selected. The data was collected using a clinical computer system to gather patient demographics and identify whether the episode of VTE was related to a hospital admission. Data was analysed using SPSS 23 in order to create descriptive statistics. Spearman’s correlation test was carried out to assess potential correlations between incidences of VTE with age. Jonckheere trend tests were used to assess the significance of trends. Results: The highest incidence of VTE was among the white population n=1470 (85.1%). The average age of the participants in the study was 66.96 years (standard deviation 17.8), There was a positive correlation between incidence of VTE and age (r=0.078, p=0.001). There were more females diagnosed with VTE, n=895 (51.8%) than males n=833 (48.2%). This trend was significant at 0.05. Conclusion: VTE is a concern for the general population and is a major health problem affecting 99 people per 100,000 of the population each year. This common disease is prevalent among all individuals irrespective of age, ethnicity or gender and is not always related to episodes of hospitalization. Further research is needed to examine risk factors and rates of VTE and to establish whether individual events are triggered by transient or acquired influences and causal relationships
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