World Thrombosis Day: Trust trial sees improvement on PE recognition

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An EEAST project to improve the pre-hospital recognition of pulmonary embolism (PE) is being hailed a success after seeing an 11% improvement.

Last year in Need to Know we ran a survey on PE to find out what you knew about the condition and how to recognise it – and you told us that there simply wasn’t enough training around the condition.

So we embarked on a ‘Think PE’ programme, which:

  • included a PE session in the professional update programme, so all staff received specific training
  • provided all patient-facing A&E colleagues with a Wells Score pocket-card, a helpful tool in recognising potential PEs
  • placed awareness ‘Think PE’ posters around the Trust that highlighted some of the symptoms associated with the condition
  • asked all staff to record ‘query PE’ or ‘?PE’ on the patient record form if they suspected a pulmonary embolism, as well as a Wells criteria score.

To see how successful it was, we delved into some data with Ipswich Hospital…

That showed us that from Nov 14 – Jan 15, of all the patients brought into Ipswich Hospital by ambulance that diagnosed by the hospital as having confirmed PEs, just 14% were marked as ‘query PE’ by us on the patient record forms, and none had a Wells score recorded.

But after rolling out the Think PE programme we looked at the figures from May – July this year, and they showed an improvement of 11% in both PE recognition and recording a Wells score!

Paramedic Ant, who coined and rolled-out the project, said: “It’s great to see some initial improvement as a result of the trial. There’s still more to do, but I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported and acted on the campaign.”

As a result of his work, Ant has been nominated to receive an Ambassador Award from the charity Thrombosis UK, which is aptly being presented to him today as part of World Thrombosis Day (13th October). Well done!

Read more about the Wells Score and other tips for PE recognition here on NTK. 

Want to read more? Visit the NICE website for more guidance and information.

 

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