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| (L-R) Central Brooklyn Network SVP and Kings County Executive Director Jean Leon; Dr. Sirisha Jasti; Dr. Kathie Rones; Dr. Abha Agrawal; Dr. Steven Weiss; Caroline Jacobs, SVP, Patient Safety, Accreditation & Regulatory Svcs. |
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a serious risk for hospitalized patients, is far less likely to occur in patients at Kings County Hospital, thanks to an aggressive new prevention program. Heralded by HHC at its third annual Patient Safety and Quality Exposition this spring, Kings County won the Grand Prize at the event for significantly reducing the rates of hospital-acquired DVTs, from 3.1 per 1000 discharges in 2002 to 0.32 in 2007.
"I see DVT prevention as a key component of patient safety," said Dr. Sirisha Jasti, Chief Resident of Kings County's Department of Medicine, who spearheaded the project. "Our goal was to assess all admitted patients for DVT risk, prescribe appropriate prophylaxis and reduce the number of hospital-acquired DVTs."
In order to reach their objectives, the Kings County team made physicians aware of DVT prophylaxis, designed an electronic DVT risk assessment tool as a mandatory field in the electronic admission history, and presented the data at morbidity and mortality conferences to make physicians more aware of failure rates and corrective measures. In addition to improved rates of DVT, physician compliance in assessing the risk for DVT and prescribing appropriate prevention also improved from 63% in 2002 to 95% in 2007.
DVT is a serious risk for certain hospitalized patients, especially those who undergo surgery. DVT occurs when a clot forms in a patient's larger veins. The clot can interfere with blood flow and be deadly if it breaks off and lodges in a critical area like the brain, lungs or heart. It's most common in adults over 60, but it can occur at any age, and can be brought on by prolonged bed rest.
"DVT prevention is part of our continuous quality improvement program. And it is a work in progress. We will never eradicate all DVTs because of our patients’ underlying co-morbid conditions. However, we have shown that through an aggressive program and vigilance we can substantially reduce them. There was definitely a positive correlation between compliance rates and reduction in the hospital-acquired DVTs," according to Dr. Jasti.
Dr. Jasti presented her abstract for the DVT prevention effort last December at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care. And IHI has made her team’s results available to the public.
"Patient Safety is number one with us and we're excited about the opportunity to share our work with our colleagues across HHC," Dr. Jasti added.
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