New Digital Tool Reduces Blood Clot Risk During and Post-Hospital Care

A new digital tool, IMPROVE-DD VTE, could potentially reduce the risk of blood clots in recently released and hospitalized patients, as per a new study released by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.

As per the study, the tool uses ‘EHR data to alert clinicians of a patient's risk of venous thromboembolism, a condition occurring when a blood clot forms in a vein. These alerts allow clinicians to prescribe clot-blocking medication before a patient seriously deteriorates.’

Dr. Alex Spyropoulos of the Feinstein Institute, shared data from a large clinical trial showing the effectiveness of this new tool to assess and decrease the risks of these blood clots and provide life-saving preventative therapy. 

The trial showed that the use of this tool led to an ‘approximate 50 percent increase in the use of appropriate thromboprophylaxis’ (clot-blocking medication) for moderate-risk medical patients, and an ‘approximately two-fold increase for high-risk patients using extended prophylaxis at hospital discharge.’

Speaking about the results of the trial, Dr. Alex Spyropoulos, professor in the Institute of Health System Science at the Feinstein Institutes, said, "Either in the hospital or in the immediate post-discharge period, armed with the right clinical decision tool, physicians can properly prevent dangerous blood clots in hospitalized medically ill patients. This new digital platform is not only able to identify at-risk and high-risk medical patients to increase rates of appropriate thromboprophylaxis, but for the first time shows that use of this tool actually decreases hard outcomes, namely thrombotic events. The results of our trial using this innovative technology has implications not only for our large health system, but globally as well in a very large at-risk hospitalized population."

As of now, most healthcare providers do not use a standard system to predict high, moderate or low risks of blood clots in hospitalized patients. This new digital tool integrates clinical decision support (CDS) using technology that can be adapted into any EHR, making it the first in the industry. Using the new digital tool, doctors would be able to prescribe the appropriate thromboprophylaxis for patients at moderate and high risk of blood clots. 

The results of the IMPROVE-DD VTE CDS tool are pending peer review and are expected to be published in AHA’s journal Circulation.