American Heart Association Launches National Initiative to Improve Pulmonary Embolism Care

The American Heart Association is launching a comprehensive three-year quality improvement initiative to address critical gaps in pulmonary embolism care, supported by Inari, now part of Stryker. Pulmonary embolism, a type of blood clot in the lungs, sends more than half a million people to U.S. hospitals each year and kills about one in five high-risk patients, according to the American Heart Association 2025 statistical update. PE represents the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the United States.

Despite medical advances, pulmonary embolism remains underdiagnosed, undertreated and inconsistently managed across healthcare systems. The Pulmonary Embolism Quality Improvement Initiative will convene a 20-site national learning collaborative representing urban, rural and under-resourced communities. These diverse care teams will share data, insights and experiences through an "all teach, all learn" approach aimed at improving health outcomes and reducing disparities across systems of care.

"This initiative aims to support the ongoing mission of improving PE care by formally examining the barriers to implementation that hospitals face in the real world," said Jay Giri, M.D., MPH, American Heart Association volunteer and lead author of the American Heart Association's scientific statement on interventional therapies for acute pulmonary embolism. "By applying the specific lens of implementation science, we hope to generate new insights on overcoming system-level challenges to PE care."

The new initiative has three primary objectives: identify knowledge and practice gaps in PE care, develop solutions to known and unknown barriers, and disseminate key insights to inform and support scalable, evidence-based PE care pathways. PE is a type of venous thromboembolism, or blood clots in the veins, that occurs when a blood clot breaks free, usually from a deep vein in the legs, and becomes lodged in the vessels supplying the lungs. VTE is a potentially life-threatening condition that contributes to up to 100,000 deaths each year in the United States.

From 2008 to 2018, PE-related mortality increased, underscoring the urgency of intervention according to research published in JAHA. "We're proud to support the American Heart Association on this important initiative," said Tim Lanier, president, Stryker, Inari Division. "By supporting the Association's investment in scalable, evidence-based solutions, we can help ensure more patients have access to the best possible treatment regardless of where they live." The initiative's findings will be made publicly available to help the entire PE community accelerate their vital work. More information about the program is available at https://heart.org/PEQualityImprovement.