Surgery Patients Who Received Treatment to Prevent Blood Clots within 24 Hours before or after Selected Surgeries

What Does This Measure?

The percentage of eligible surgery patients who received treatment to prevent blood clots before or after selected surgeries.

Why Is This Important?

Patients sometimes develop blood clots after they undergo surgery. This can limit blood flow and even cause a potentially fatal lung condition called pulmonary embolism.

Treatment to prevent blood clots -- which may include blood thinning medications, elastic support stockings, or mechanical air stockings that promote circulation in the legs -- should be given within 24 hours of surgery.

What Are We Doing to Improve Our Performance?

Duke has enacted several initiatives to improve our performance. These include:

• Blood clot prevention protocols (standardized order set)
  
• Evidence-based medicine
• Patient rounding
• Computerized physician order entry (CPOE)
• Electronic medical records (EMR)
• Six Sigma and DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control process) methodologies
• Nursing and physician education
• Patient safety and clinical quality committees
• Surgery-specific patient education and instructions
• Patient advocacy and support groups
• Surgical Care Improvement Project Team

More Information

• See more surgery quality measures
• See all performance measures
• Compare Duke to other North Carolina hospitals at NC Hospital Quality Report
• Compare Duke to regional and national hospitals at Hospital Quality Alliance's Hospital Compare