Non-surgical patients at high risk of venous thromboembolism

Half of hospital patients admitted for non-surgical treatments are at risk of developing a potentially deadly venous thromboembolism during their stay yet just 42% of them receive preventive measures to stop it happening.

Experts are calling for hospitals to take urgent steps to make sure at-risk patients are identified early. Despite being easily preventable, clots that travel to the lungs (pulmonary emboli) are responsible for 10% of hospital deaths.

The warning comes after an international study involving nearly 70,000 hospital patients across 32 countries, including 1,200 patients at eight hospitals in Australia, found patients were consistently missing out on the preventive treatments.

Alex Gallus, professor of haematology at Flinders University in Adelaide and the Australian coordinator of the study, said the results showed hospitals “have a lot more work to do” in making stays as safe as possible for patients.

The study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, found 52%, or just over 35,000 patients across all the countries, were judged to be at risk for clots. Patients in the study were categorised as either surgical or medical (non-surgical). The latter group was admitted for the treatment of heart attack, stroke, lung diseases, cancer and other conditions.

Professor Gallus said surgical patients were generally well looked after, with 82% of at-risk Australian patients given preventive treatments, and similar figures in comparable countries.

However, it was another story for medical patients, who – in Australia and elsewhere – were often overlooked. Although 49% (406) of the 834 Australian medical patients were judged to be at risk of clots, or venous thromboembolism, only 51% (208) of those 406 were given any preventive treatments.