Barriers to the use of outpatient enoxaparin therapy in patients with deep venous thrombosis

To establish a clinical pathway for outpatient enoxaparin therapy in deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and then characterize its implementation and barriers to use. Procedure Single institution, prospective, observational study of consecutive adult emergency department patients (age ≥18 years) who had a diagnosis of DVT. A clinical pathway was created to facilitate outpatient therapy with enoxaparin, and then all patients with DVT were enrolled and studied. Results A total of 97/98 (99%) eligible patients were enrolled. Among 97 patients, 29 (30%) were successfully started on the outpatient enoxaparin therapy approach. Of the 68 (70%) patients not started on the outpatient therapy, 19 (20%) patients had contraindications to anticoagulant therapy, 33 (34%) had other indications for hospitalization, 6 (6%) were unable to reliably self-inject, and 10 (10%) patients had a primary care physician or emergency physician who rejected the outpatient approach. Conclusions The establishment of an organized DVT pathway for outpatient enoxaparin may facilitate home therapy; however, there will remain reasons that make hospital admission unavoidable in some patients.