Leveraging resources for obstetric venous thromboembolism prevention in a state safety collaborative

Abstract

In recent years, state obstetric quality and maternal safety initiatives have led efforts to reduce maternal risk and improve maternal safety. A priority of many of these collaboratives has been to disseminate and implement safety bundles focusing on leading causes of maternal mortality including venous thromboembolism. In 2013, the Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), a quality improvement effort led by ACOG District II in New York State, began developing a VTE bundle reviewed available clinical evidence, practice guidelines, and protocols and assessed how hospitals with varying resources could implement standardized approaches to obstetric thromboembolism prophylaxis. This bundle was subsequently released for implementation in New York State's hospitals with support from SMI. The purpose of this review is to characterize, from the perspective of a state safety leadership collaborative, the resources that were most critical in assisting individual hospitals in (i) determining which VTE prophylaxis strategies would be adopted, and (ii) operationalizing implementation.

Keywords: Maternal morbidity; Maternal safety; Obstetric thromboembolism; Venous thromboembolism.