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's 2025 statistical update. This condition represents the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the United States, highlighting the urgent need for improved care protocols and standardized treatment approaches across healthcare systems.
Despite medical advancements, pulmonary embolism remains underdiagnosed, undertreated and inconsistently managed nationwide. 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 to better understand barriers and advance best practices for pulmonary embolism diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care.
This initiative aims to 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. According to Dr. Jay Giri, American Heart Association volunteer and lead author of the Association's scientific statement on interventional therapies for acute pulmonary embolism, the program will formally examine implementation barriers that hospitals face in real-world settings.
Pulmonary embolism is a type of venous thromboembolism 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. Venous thromboembolism is a potentially life-threatening condition that contributes to up to 100,000 deaths each year in the United States. The urgency for intervention is underscored by data showing that from 2008 to 2018, PE-related mortality rates increased, as documented in research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The new initiative's "all teach, all learn" approach will enable diverse care teams to share data, insights and experiences aimed at improving health outcomes and reducing disparities across systems of care. Tim Lanier, president of Stryker's Inari Division, emphasized the importance of supporting scalable, evidence-based solutions to ensure more patients have access to the best possible treatment regardless of geographic location or healthcare resources.
This collaborative effort represents a significant step toward addressing the systemic challenges in pulmonary embolism care that have contributed to persistent mortality rates. By applying implementation science and making findings publicly available, the initiative aims to provide new data and frameworks to help the entire pulmonary embolism community accelerate their vital work in preventing unnecessary deaths from this common cardiovascular emergency.
