Which is the best model to assess risk for venous thromboembolism in hospitalised patients?

### What you need to know Venous thromboembolism (VTE), which includes deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), is a major global health burden. North American data report a 30 day case fatality rate of 10.6% following VTE. Between 30% and 50% of survivors go on to have long term complications.12 About half of VTE episodes occur during hospitalisation for surgery or acute medical illness, or within 90 days from discharge. These events are classified as hospital acquired thrombosis (HAT).3 HAT events are potentially preventable through patient education and pharmacological thromboprophylaxis. A meta-analysis (seven trials, 15 095 hospitalised patients) showed greater than 50% risk reduction for VTE with heparins compared with control.4 In many elective surgical settings, thromboprophylaxis has become established practice.56 However, pharmacological thromboprophylaxis is not suitable for all patients admitted to hospital in an emergency. It can increase the baseline risk of major bleeding by approximately 0.4%.678910 When given inappropriately, the consequences can be potentially harmful, notably for patients with occult bleeding on admission or those undergoing emergency procedures. VTE risk assessment models (RAMs) aim to minimise unnecessary pharmacological thromboprophylaxis and reduce the associated harm and costs. They can also potentially provide individualised and reproducible evaluation of VTE risk, independent of seniority, expertise or bias of the assessing clinician. Fifteen published RAMs were identified in a recent overview of systematic reviews.11 RAMs overlap on individual risk …