American Heart Association Launches National Initiative to Improve Pulmonary Embolism Care
The American Heart Association is launching a three-year quality improvement initiative to address critical gaps in pulmonary embolism diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care, targeting a condition that kills about one in five high-risk patients and represents the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the U.S.
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. This condition represents the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the United States, yet it remains underdiagnosed, undertreated and inconsistently managed across healthcare systems.
To address these critical gaps in care, the American Heart Association is launching a three-year quality improvement initiative supported by Inari, now part of Stryker. 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. The findings will be made publicly available to help the entire pulmonary embolism community accelerate their work.
Pulmonary embolism 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. This potentially life-threatening condition 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.
"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 comes at a critical time as healthcare systems nationwide grapple with improving outcomes for pulmonary embolism patients. The collaborative approach aims to generate practical solutions that can be implemented across diverse healthcare settings, potentially saving thousands of lives annually through improved diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care protocols.