Percentage of patients admitted with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who received low molecular weight (LMW) heparin during their admission

What is inflammatory bowel disease?

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes the conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These diseases of the bowel can cause abdominal pain, diarrhoea and bleeding. These are relapsing conditions with periods when patients are well and other times when the disease flares up. 

The majority of IBD patients are treated as outpatients although some patients will be admitted to hospital when their disease flares up. More information on IBD is available via the external links below. 

How is the Trust doing?

Your browser does not support this graph; however, you can still view the statistics in the table below.

Higher percentage indicates better performance.

Why is this indicator important?

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease have an increased risk of developing blood clots. When patients are admitted to hospital the risk of blood clots is further increased due to bed rest. 

There is some evidence that heparin medication is a useful treatment in IBD and very good evidence that heparin helps to prevent blood clots. We therefore think it is sensible to try to prevent blood clots developing in patients admitted to hospital due to their inflammatory bowel disease.

How do we measure this indicator?

The indicator is measured by the percentage of patients admitted to hospital with IBD who were prescribed low molecular weight heparin (tinzaparin or Innohep) during their admission. This indicator looks at patients who were under the care of a gastroenterologist with a stay of greater than 72 hours in hospital.

Where does the data come from?

The data for this indicator is compiled from the Trust’s patient administration system, called Oceano, and the Prescribing and Information Communication System (PICS).