Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Pulmonary Embolism (PE) occurs when a blood clot becomes lodged in the blood vessels of the lung, causing significant problems with oxygenation, circulation, and heart function1-3. PE is the third leading cause of cardiovascular mortality with an incidence of 1 in 1000, affecting over 46,000 Canadians per year, and causing over 1,000 deaths (one death every 8 hours)4. Furthermore, PE survivors often suffer from long term complications, with up to 50% of patients endorsing reduced quality of life and impaired functional capacity at 6 months after diagnosis5. Risk factors for the development of PE include age, cancer, trauma, and immobilization, whereby PE is the main preventable cause of death for hospitalized patients6. Improving outcomes for PE patients will reduce unnecessary death, disability, and health care costs for Canadians and result in a healthier society at large. Pulmonary Embolism Canada - PECAN was established with the specific goal of improving care for patients with intermediate and high risk PE in Canada. PECAN builds on the existing expertise within Canada from world-leading organizations such as CanVECTOR, Thrombosis Canada, Canadian Critical Care Trials Group, as well as international partnerships with the Pulmonary Embolism Response Team (PERT) Consortium in the US; notably, PECAN fills an important niche not currently addressed by any of the above organizations. Led by three dynamic clinician-researchers from the complementary fields of Thrombosis (Castellucci), Emergency Medicine (de Wit), and Critical Care (Mendelson), PECAN is planning our inaugural PECAN summit in October 2024. At this meeting, with input from stakeholders across the country, we will engage in discussion and advancement of the three core pillars of PECAN: (i)Implementation of clinical systems of best practice care (ii)Epidemiology to understand current management, outcomes, and disparities (iii)Clinical research to advance Canadian PE patient outcomes