Serial use of existing clinical decisions aids can reduce computed tomography pulmonary angiography for pulmonary embolism.

Pulmonary embolism (PE) remains a diagnostic challenge in emergency medicine. Clinical decision aids (CDAs) like the Pulmonary Embolism Rule-Out Criteria (PERC) are sensitive but poorly specific; serial CDA use may improve specificity. The goal of this before-and-after study was to determine if serial use of existing CDAs in a novel diagnostic algorithm safely decreases the use of CT pulmonary angiograms (CTPA).