Between 25 June and 9 July 2009 a two-week pilot project was run in the Devon Partnership NHS Trust to establish the prevalence of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in a mental health provider and create priority for action from board to bedside.
The pilot was stimulated by Venous Thromboembolism in the NHS – A Leadership Summit, hosted by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson and the All-Parliamentary Thrombosis Group in June 2009.
Dr Peter Aitken, Director of Research & Development at the Devon Partnership NHS Trust, emailed his 55 consultant colleagues inviting them to share their experience of VTE over the last few years. He also asked them to use e-VTE and report their results to each other. Their level of engagement and the conversation that followed was measured and recorded:
“This is an excellent format for e-learning. Thank you for passing it on. It is a very quick way of disseminating info and benchmarking practice. Having had a patient die from an unexpected PE a couple of years ago on my ward I am glad to see this in action. It does focus the mind! It is good to think through the issues before you are forced to through tragedy.”
“Must say that this is an excellent way to learn/re-learn medical stuff. I scored 66 % and I wonder what our medical colleagues would score on this one (~99%?) Wish we had more of these tests, I find them stimulating”
“Quick and easy learning and assessment. Why can't we do this for essential clinical knowledge..... short sharp learning around NICE guidance, updates in pharmacology, medico-legal updates etc”
“This is a very good resource with fantastic animations and I would recommend this to all staff.”
In summary the exercise demonstrated that VTE is a significant issue and potentially contributes to 10% of preventable deaths within mental health service providers. e-VTE was considered an acceptable & valued learning tool for around half of the consultants interviewed.
