Venous thromboembolism performance measurement in the United States: An evolving landscape with many stakeholders.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE), including deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, is a life-threatening, costly, and common preventable complication associated with hospitalization. Although VTE prevention strategies such as risk assessment and prophylaxis are available, they are not applied uniformly or systematically across US hospitals and healthcare systems. Hospital-level performance measurement has been used nationally to promote standardized approaches for VTE prevention and incentivize the adoption of guideline-based care management.

Timing of antimicrobial prophylaxis and the risk of surgical site infections: results from the Trial to Reduce Antimicrobial Prophylaxis Errors.

Objective: The objective of this study is to determine the optimal timing for surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (AMP).

Summary Background Data: National AMP guidelines should be supported by evidence from large contemporary data sets.

Methods: Twenty-nine hospitals prospectively obtained information on AMP from 4472 randomly selected cardiac, hip/knee arthroplasty, and hysterectomy cases.

The effect of a quality improvement collaborative to improve antimicrobial prophylaxis in surgical patients: a randomized trial.

Background: Quality improvement collaboratives are used to improve health care quality, but their efficacy remains controversial.

Objective: To assess the effects of a quality improvement collaborative on preoperative antimicrobial prophylaxis.

Design: Longitudinal cluster randomized trial, with the quality improvement collaborative as the intervention.