The effect of hospital-based antithrombotic stewardship on adherence to anticoagulant guidelines

Background: Anticoagulant therapy is associated with a high risk of complications. Adherence to anticoagulant therapy protocols may lower this risk but adherence is often suboptimal. The introduction of a multidisciplinary antithrombotic team may improve adherence to anticoagulant guidelines among physicians.

Objective: To determine the efect of hospital-based multidisciplinary antithrombotic stewardship on adherence to anticoagulant guidelines among prescribing physicians. Setting This prospective non-randomised before-and-after study was conducted in patients hospitalized between October 2015 and December 2017 and treated with anticoagulant therapy.

Method: A multidisciplinary antithrombotic team focusing on education, medication reviews, drafting of local anticoagulant therapy protocols, patient counseling and medication reconciliation at admission and discharge was implemented in two Dutch hospitals. Main outcome measure Primary outcome was the proportion of the admitted patients in which the prescribing physician did adhere to the anticoagulant guidelines.

Results: The study comprised 1886 patients, of which 941 patients were included in the usual care period and 945 patients in the intervention period. Multivariable logistic regression analysis indicated that adherence was observed signifcantly more often during the intervention period (adjusted odds ratio [ORadj] 1.58, 95% confdence interval [95% CI] 1.21–2.05). Detailed analysis identifed that the signifcantly higher overall adherence in the intervention period was attributed to dosing of LMWHs (odds ratio [OR] 1.58, 95% CI 1.16–2.14).

Conclusion: This study shows that introduction of a multidisciplinary antithrombotic stewardship leads to a signifcantly higher overall adherence to anticoagulant guidelines among prescribing physicians, mainly based on the improvement of dosing of low-molecular-weight-heparins.