Background

Use of an under-desk elliptical device on a bariatric surgical patient will increase mobility and decrease risk of a venous thromboembolism. Relevance Populations with obesity, undergoing bariatric surgery, are at increased risk for decreased mobilization and increased risk for VTE events. The ideal environment would use leg muscles to generate SCD effect of activating endothelial Tissue Plasminogen Activator. Using the device to supplement the use of VTE prophylaxis.

Methods

All admitted patients undergoing Metabolic surgeryIntervention: Postop, patients are ambulated within two hours of arrival from PACU. Sitting patients have the device placed in front of them. Patients receive instructions on using the elliptical device at the pre-operative visit.Patients are provided with logs to write down the amount of time the device was used. Each shift the amount of use, time, distance, steps are documented. Audits are performed.AnalysisCollected data is provided at monthly meetings.

Results

Data collected, June 2022- August 2023: Patients completed an average of 11.96 miles, an average time of 47.3 minutes, and an average number of strides 2320.8 in the first 14 months of implementation. Patients reported 'Ease of Use' score of 1.17, with 1 being easy to use and 3 difficult to use. There were no recorded incidents of post-operative VTE in the MBSAQIP data registry, from our hospital.

Conclusions

Using an under-desk elliptical device increases mobility, decreases VTE risk, this novel approach is reproducible and quantitative.