Analyzing Sequential Compression Device Compliance in a Large Tertiary Care Trauma Center

Venous Thromboembolisms (VTE) are a leading cause of preventable hospital death in the United States.  Hospitalized patients, especially following a trauma, are at a significantly higher risk for developing a VTE.  Sequential compression devices (SCD) were designed to work via both mechanical and fibrinolytic mechanisms to improve blood flow and prevent clot formation.  Over 70% of hospital acquired VTE’s are preventable through preventative compression and anticoagulants, yet fewer than half of hospital patients receive these treatments.  SCD’s are a commonly used preventative measure for VTE’s, yet compliance is extremely low. The main purpose of this project was to analyze SCD compliance on a specific floor (7 East Trauma Floor at Prisma Health) at a large tertiary trauma center. The goal of our project is to eventually reach an average of at least 50% total compliance at any given time for patients on the floor. Our methods included random auditing and direct visualization of patients on the trauma floor, and whether or not they were fully compliant with our standards of SCD usage. The results of our data analysis for 22 total audits found an overall 37.47% compliance rate, with varying compliance rates among different months and times of day. Many different factors could have contributed to the data results that we found in our study, including possible weaknesses in the study design. The next step in our project is to put in place a definitive intervention that could increase total SCD compliance on the floor, and then analyze the data afterwards.