Standardizing Screening for Preeclampsia Risk Factors to Improve Prescribing of Low-Dose Aspirin

Preeclampsia is a serious health condition and leading cause of perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Research supports the use of low-dose aspirin therapy to prevent preeclampsia in high-risk pregnant people. This quality improvement project outlines the implementation of a preeclampsia risk screen in the electronic health record to ensure standardized screening for, and provision of, low-dose aspirin therapy consistent with professional guidelines. Two thousand three hundred seventy-one patients were seen between March and November 2020 at 13 OB/GYN and family practice offices at a large health system in our state. Provider screening and prescribing rates were evaluated at the first prenatal visit, and at 3-month intervals using an analytics dashboard built in the EHR. In the first 3 months after rollout visits at all offices in our system (March to May 2020), the average screening rate during first prenatal visits at all offices was 74.2% (n = 561), 41% (n = 230) had a positive screen, and 81.3% (n = 187) of those who screened high risk were prescribed aspirin as recommended. At 9 months after rollout, the screening rate during first prenatal visits at all offices improved to 95.6% (n = 782), 39.6% (n = 310) of those screened, screened positive, and 97.1% (n = 301) were prescribed low-dose aspirin therapy appropriately.