What Is the Antithrombotic Center of Excellence Program?

The Antithrombotic Center of Excellence (ACE) Program helps healthcare services evaluate, strengthen, and sustain high-quality antithrombotic care. Established in 2012, with input from multidisciplinary experts, the program provides a practical, evidence-based framework that supports care teams across diverse service models and settings.

Through a structured self-assessment, participating services can benchmark their current practices against expert-informed standards, identify opportunities for improvement, and enhance the quality, safety, and consistency of care. Services that meet all required best practices earn recognition as an Antithrombotic Center of Excellence for five years.

How to Become a Center of Excellence

Becoming a Center of Excellence begins with completion of the Antithrombotic Center of Excellence Assessment. The assessment is designed to help services evaluate their current systems, safety practices, and care processes against established standards.

Only one designated representative can submit the assessment on behalf of the service. This is typically the Medical Director, Program Manager, or another designated leader. However, services are encouraged to involve a multidisciplinary team to ensure responses reflect current practices accurately. The ACE Assessment allows services to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of their antithrombotic practices. It is intended to support honest internal review, identify strengths, and highlight areas where improvement may be needed.

The assessment provides:

• A standardized review of current antithrombotic care practices
• A pathway towards Antithrombotic Center of Excellence recognition

Recognition is valid for five years. To maintain recognition, services must renew by retaking the assessment at the end of the recognition period.

Prepare for the assessment:

To help ensure your site is ready to complete the assessment, we recommend taking the following steps before you begin:

• Convene key stakeholders involved in antithrombotic management
• Review current workflows, protocols, and performance data in advance
• Use consensus-based decision-making when responding to each item

A PDF version of the assessment questions and Readiness Assessment checklists is available to support internal review. We recommend reviewing these materials before submitting payment and beginning the assessment.

Pricing: The cost of the assessment is $399. Once you submit payment, you have 7 days to complete the assessment. If you do not pass the assessment, there is an opportunity to retake it for a fee of $99.