Does Hip Fracture Admitting Service Affect Proper Deep Venous Thrombosis Prophylaxis? An Investigation at a Level 1 Trauma Center

Objective: To examine if rates of appropriate thromboprophylaxis prescribing at the time of discharge would be higher in patients admitted to the orthopaedic service. Second, to see if improvements could be made in the rates of these missed events after a structured intervention. Design: Retrospective Cohort Study, Prospective Interventional. Setting: Level 1 Academic Hospital. Patients: Two hundred forty-six patients undergoing a hip hemiarthroplasty for femoral neck fracture discharged to an extended care facility. Intervention: A letter was sent to the internal quality control committee detailing our preintervention study. Main Outcome Measure: We looked at the differences among admitting services for missed thromboembolic prophylaxis (TPx) at the time of hospital discharge and rates of appropriate TPx after a structured intervention. Results: No statistically significant differences existed in relation to patient age, gender, body mass index, or postoperative discharge day in the preintervention group. Orthopaedic surgery prescribed adequate TPx at discharge for 76 of 77 patients (98.7%), general trauma surgery for 26 of 30 patients (86.7%), and internal medicine for 85 of 96 patients (86.7%) in the preintervention group. There was a statistically significant difference when comparing adequate TPx between orthopaedic surgery and other services (P
Source: Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma - Category: Orthopaedics Tags: Original Article Source Type: research