Our systematic review failed to find high-quality evidence to suggest that ambulation alone is an appropriate or effective prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism.

Although some studies suggest that ambulation may reduce venous thromboembolism events among patients admitted to hospital, we could not draw conclusions about how early, how much, how vigorous or how often ambulation should occur to reduce events effectively.

In the context of substantial evidence for pharmacologic prophylaxis to prevent venous thromboembolism, ambulation should not be considered an adequate prophylaxis, nor should ambulation be a reason to discontinue pharmacologic prophylaxis during hospital admission.

Our findings point to an important function of systematic reviews, which is to evaluate existing evidence.

We rigorously evaluated data from studies over a 69-year span and can conclude that research is needed to assess prescribed therapies for ambulation and determine whether any are effective in preventing venous thromboembolism events.

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