March 16, 2007

March is Deep Vein Thrombosis Awareness Month

Few people know that deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a condition that refers to a blood clot in a vein of the upper or lower extremity, kills more people in the United States than AIDS and breast cancer combined. Serious complications can occur when the blood clot travels to the lungs and blocks a pulmonary artery or one of its branches, causing a pulmonary embolism (PE). Each year, nearly 300,000 Americans die from DVT-related conditions and up to 600,000 are hospitalized for its complications.

To help educate the general public and remind MGHers of the risk factors, signs and symptoms of DVT and PE, the MGH Anticoagulation Management Service (AMS) is decorating "DVT socks" during the month of March to highlight the importance of DVT awareness and risk assessment.

"Every patient admitted to the MGH must undergo a comprehensive risk assessment for DVT," says Lynn Oertel, RN, clinical nurse specialist for AMS. "Our goal is to optimize patient care for those patients who are at risk for DVT — cancer patients, surgery patients and others who are restricted to their beds or who are immobile all have a higher risk for the condition."

AMS serves patients referred by MGH physicians. Inpatients discharged from the hospital on anticoagulation therapy may be referred using the Provider Order Entry consult feature. Eligible patients include patients new to Warfarin, even those who ultimately will receive long-term maintenance care from an outside primary care physician, and all established AMS patients whose care is interrupted and require transition therapy following hospitalization.

AMS does not provide any service to patients who already have an established relationship with a Warfarin manager unless long-term care will be transferred to AMS and the patient has an MGH physician for the service with whom to collaborate.

In addition, AMS accepts referrals for long-term management from physician practices. The service has approximately 3,800 active patients in its care. To contact AMS, search "anticoag" in Microsoft Outlook or the Partners Telephone Directory. For more information about DVT, access www.preventdvt.org.

AMS staff display decorated DVT socks.