Remember the PE questionnaire?

PE pic OPT

Last year in Need to Know we asked about your knowledge of pulmonary embolism (PE) and we are pleased to tell you what action has been taken based on what you told us.

A PE session is included in this years’ professional update, which focuses on some pathophysiology of the condition and what we can all do to improve our recognition of those patients who could be displaying signs and symptoms of PE.

To further improve our care for these patients, we are also launching a trial in Ipswich, Kings Lynn and Peterborough to collect data to demonstrate if we are accurately diagnosing PE. The information collected during this trial could be used to develop a treatment pathway in the future.

We are looking for 30 clinicians from each area to take part in the trial – student paramedics, EMTs and paramedics are eligible to take part.

If you are selected to take part, you will be issued with a data collection pack and asked to submit forms for appropriate patients. Full instructions are included in the pack.

We are also issuing PE pocket cards to every clinician to use as an aide memoir for the Wells criteria. These will be arriving very soon, along with two book rings to make storing your pocket cards easier.

In the meantime if you suspect a patient could be suffering with a PE, please record a Wells score and note ‘?PE’ on their patient documentation, if you don’t already do so. This should include all patients suffering with unexplained chest pain or breathing difficulties i.e. those that can’t easily be attributed to any other cause.

If you have any further questions about the trial or PE in general, please contact Ant Brett, Quality Improvement Fellow, by email anthony.brett@eastamb.nhs.uk or by phone 07715074025.

Thank you in advance for your support in improving our care to PE patients.

Ant Brett

Published 7th May 2015 

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