A quality improvement project decreases incidence of pulmonary embolism following arthroplasty.

Objective: To develop a quality improvement initiative to reduce the incidence of pulmonary embolism (PE) following elective lower extremity joint replacement surgery.

Methods: 866 Patients undergoing a total knee or total or partial hip replacement surgery at a from 2014 to 2016 were included in this prospective pre-post interventional study.

Results: There were 13 PE's before the intervention and 2 after the intervention. The incidence of PE was significantly higher prior to the intervention (2.8% vs. 0.7%; p = 0.044).

Conclusions: Our results suggest that our bundle of interventions was successfully implemented and helped to reduce the incidence of pulmonary embolism following surgery.