Save The Date – Venous Thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States, affecting up to 900,000 people and accounting for up to 100,000 deaths annually. The focus of care for patients once diagnosed with blood clots is to prevent recurrent VTE, major bleeding, and death. While these are highly relevant clinical outcomes, they do not capture patient-centered outcomes such as quality of life (QoL). Importantly, decreased QoL is prevalent after VTE, occurring in up to half of patients.

Post-VTE syndrome occurs despite adequate anticoagulation therapy, ranging from mild to severe symptoms, and can have a major impact on QoL. Moreover, post-VTE syndrome has been associated with higher risk of depressive disorders, unemployment, and social isolation.

In this webinar, two clinical experts will present data and discuss the importance of understanding psychosocial factors that can affect patients’ diagnoses and long-term recovery from VTE.

Rachel Rosovsky, MD, will discuss results from a study she conducted in collaboration with the National Blood Clot Alliance—the CLUES (A Critical Look at Understanding the Emotional Suffering of Blood Clot Survivors) study. The CLUES study seeks to better understand the main determinants of post-VTE syndrome and how this syndrome impacts patients’ recovery from their acute event. Dr. Rosovsky will share ways in which CLUES study findings can help guide future patient care, education, and research.

Jeffrey Kline, MD, will address the importance of clinicians’ use of empathy and appropriate language at the time of pulmonary embolism (PE) diagnosis. Emerging evidence suggests that cognitive empathy can improve patients’ trust in physicians and may help patients better understand the benefit of diagnostic testing for PE. Dr. Kline will discuss the need for emergency department (ED) providers to be aware of biases that might distract them from recognizing the need to test for PE. In the United States more than half of new or recurrent diagnoses of PE alone are made in an ED.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe why patient-centered outcomes are important during VTE care.
2. Describe how to use empathy to positively affect VTE patient care.
3. List an “always” and “never” statement to make to a patient with newly diagnosed VTE.