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IN THIS ISSUE |
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UK National safety
alert
AC Forum
2007 15th User Group
USA User Group
Vitamin K may improve control in unstable patients
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Welcome to
the April edition of the DAWN AC Anticoagulation
Software E-Newsletter for 2007.
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UK National Patient Safety
Agency (NPSA) - Safety Alert |
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The NPSA released a patient safety alert on the 28th
of March outlining recommended actions which can
make anticoagulant therapy safer. These actions
include:
- Ensuring all staff have
the necessary work competences. Any gaps in
competence must be resolved through appropriate
training.
- Auditing anticoagulant
services regularly.
- Ensuring that those
dispensing interacting medicines check that
additional safety measure are taken for the
patient, ie, additional INR blood tests.
- Using warfarin regimens
that give the least number of tablets each day and
use constant daily dosing rather than alternate
dosing. These characteristics have been identified
by patients as promoting safer use.
- Undertaking risk
assessments on the use of Monitored Dosage
systems.
The deadline for completing
the safety actions is the 31st of March 2008.
To view the full
article please follow this link:
You can also view a talk given by Dr. Clough,
Consultant Haematologist from the Countess of
Chester hospital at the 2006 Dawn AC user group on
'How to Assess the Competence of your Dosing
staff' using the below link:
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AC Forum -
Chicago 3rd May - 5th May |
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For those of you who
are attending the AC Forum in Chicago in May, we would
be
 pleased
to meet you, during the reception and the breaks
throughout the conference, and show you the latest
version of Dawn AC.
Also for those of you
who are interested in seeing the product and discussing
its features and benefits in more detail, we are holding
a short seminar on Friday 4th of May at the hotel which
will start at 6:00pm and finish around 7:30pm. We
will also be displaying a poster with DAWN AC
Benchmarking in the USA.
Look forward to seeing
you there!
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Dawn AC
Anticoagulation Software 15th User Group 2007 |
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We are keen to hear from those of you
who would like to give a short talk at the User Group
Meeting, we are offering a ‘speaker’s package’ where
there will be a £100 reduction in the meeting fee
and we also help with your presentation preparation. In
response to user requests, we invite you to share how
you use Dawn AC in different settings eg laboratory
based, community based with POC, pharmacist managed. In
addition, we would be interested in your experiences
with Version 7.
Following the success of last years User
Group, we have decided to hold the event again in the
popular Rheghed Centre. This is because The Rheghed
is actually much more accessible for everybody to
attend, as it is only two minutes off the M6 Motorway,
J40.
The User Group, as many of you know,
offers the chance for Health Care Professionals to share
ideas and learn alternative methods of best practice
within Anticoagulation therapy. As well as the day being
informative and beneficial, we try to make the event
enjoyable by providing an evening meal and entertainment
within the package price.
We have already received some of your
booking forms and therefore, would like to pre-warn
people that it is essential that we receive your forms
as soon as possible to save disappointment.
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North
American User Group |
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The North American User
Group is going to be held on the 12th October in Denver,
the day before the South West Symposium on Thrombosis
and Hemostasis, also being held in Denver, making
this, potentially, a very informative and worthwhile
trip.
Current speakers include:
- Dan Witt, Head of
Anticoagulation at Kaiser Permanente Colorado
- Priscilla DiCarlo,
Manager of Anticoagulation at Group Health Cooperative,
Seattle
- Brian Schilling,
Clinical Pharmacist at Alaska Native Medical Center
- Amy Kramer, Pharmacist
at Kaiser Permanente Ohio
- Laura Earl, RN at the
University Hospital of New Mexico
- Janet Jensen, RN at
Salem Hospital
- Teresa Hodgkins,
Pharmacist and Director at Desert Medical Group, Palm
Springs
- Lisa Vaughn, RN at
Wenatchee Valley Medical Center
- Richard Creamer,
Supervisor at Kaiser Permanente Colorado
We are
in need of further speakers to contribute to the success
of the day. If anyone would be interested in giving a
short presentation, rather like what is mentioned above,
then again we would be keen to hear from you.
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Vitamin K May
Improve Control in Unstable Patients |
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According to a new study carried out at Newcastle
University recently, patients who have unstable control
of anticoagulation take a significantly lower dose of
vitamin K compared to stable patients.
Seventy
unstable patients were randomly given either a 150ug
(micrograms) oral vitamin K dose or a placebo over a six month
period. It was found that vitamin K supplementation
resulted in a significantly greater decrease in standard
deviation of international normalized ratio (INR)
compared with the placebo.
It was
concluded that concomitant supplementation of vitamin K,
possibly through reducing the relative day-to-day
variability in dietary vitamin K intake, can
significantly improve anticoagulation control in
patients with unexplained instability of response to
warfarin.
To view
the full article, please refer to the Blood Journal
website:
http://www.bloodjournal.org
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