Preventing Venous Thromboembolism in Ambulatory Cancer Patients: The ONKOTEV Study.

Background: The efficacy of risk model scores to predict venous thromboembolism (VTE) in ambulatory cancer patients is under investigation, aiming to stratify on an individual risk basis the subset of the cancer population that could mostly benefit from primary thromboprophylaxis.

Materials And Methods: We prospectively assessed 843 patients with active cancers, collecting clinical and laboratory data. We screened all the patients with a duplex ultrasound (B-mode imaging and Doppler waveform analysis) of the upper and lower limbs to evaluate the right incidence of VTE (both asymptomatic and symptomatic).

Successes and lessons learned implementing the sepsis bundle.

Sepsis is well described in the literature as a leading cause of possibly preventable death in the United States. Analysis of baseline data indicated capacity to reduce mortality, significant variation in clinical practice patterns and opportunities for reducing cost per case. Following an enterprise-wide challenge to save lives, a multidisciplinary, facility-based team was organized to improve sepsis care.