Safe Care involves the design and delivery of care and services to minimise the risk of patient harm. Western Health identified the low rate of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) risk assessment on admission as potentially impacting on our ability to provide safe care for every patient, every time, everywhere.
A team of skilled clinicians including Komal Bagadia, Kent MacMillan, Dr Anthony Barberi, Dr Anne Marie Southcott, Dr David Bramley, and Jen Tiet, with the assistance of our Performance Unit, successfully developed strategies to improve the rate of VTE risk assessment completion. Simplified VTE ordersets and an in-built VTE risk calculator were developed in the EMR. A Live EMR Dashboard was created and the alerts within the EMR were revised.
Outcomes have included a significant increase in VTE risk assessment documentation when comparing March and June 2020 data and an increase in junior medical staff confidence when assessing risk and prescribing prophylaxis.
