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Stopping hormonal contraceptives early when a VTE occurs may also lead to abnormal uterine bleeding, a risk that Dr. Blondon explains leads many doctors to advise patients to continue using hormonal birth control for a period while they are taking anticoagulants to treat the VTE.

“I understand about the rats and the electrodes,” said the man sitting opposite me in the restaurant, across town from the conference venue, “but what do you mean by VTE?”

After analyzing numerous process measures reported by CMS via Hospital Compare, we incorporated two – VTE-3 in all cohorts and HF-3 in heart failure – into our ratings.

"This is important because the incidence of pediatric VTE has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, and childhood obesity remains highly prevalent in the United States," lead study author Dr. Elizabeth Halvorson, assistant professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a hospital news release.

"But it does demonstrate an association between obesity and VTE in children, which should be explored further in larger future studies," she added.