Brief hospital quality improvement program: preventing venous thromboembolism.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a frequent but potentially preventable complication in the hospitalized patient. Solid medical evidence exists about pharmacological and other techniques of effective prevention. As part of a University Hospital quality improvement (QI) program, the Department of Familyand Community Medicine (FCM) increased the rate of prevention from 25 percent to more than 90 percent of eligible patients in just eight months. This overview describes the steps taken in this project to achieve rapid results using accepted QI methodology to reduce VTE.