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E-Newsletter January 2006

Topics in this Dawn AC E-Newsletter Previous Newsletters

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Computer Aided Dosing Better than Physicians in a Rehabilitation Hospital
Safety Reminder to 'Yellow' Book Printer Users
Have You Read the Customer Obligations Document?
Reduce the Risk of Harm to Patients by 700%
15^th Benchmarking Service Run Completed with 200,000 patients
New Analysis Work planned on Benchmarking Analysis
Special Discounts available until 28^th February for Customers

Computer Aided Dosing Better than Physicians in Rehabilitation Hospital Trial

A trial has been completed to determine whether computer-aided dosing (using Dawn AC) is superior to physician dosing in the Harvard Medical School/Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, MA, and USA.

The trial found that computers were significantly better at maintaining patients within therapeutic range ( INR Range ( 2- 3)) than physicians. Computer -aided dosing resulted in 61.7% of days within therapeutic range, whereas clinician dosing resulted in only 44.1%.

There were no significant differences in the number of blood draws or demographic variables between the groups. There was no incident of DVT or PE recorded for any of the patients during the course of the study.

Reference: American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 0894-9115/05/8406-0423/0

Safety Reminder to 'Yellow' Book Printer Users

If you change your computer or have it reconfigured in any way, say with other new software/hardware, please remember to ensure safe operation that your Book Printer driver is configured to print directly to the printer instead of spooling print jobs. This prevents the wrong instruction from previous patients being printed if the operator does not work rigorously with the barcode reader checks.

Have You Read the Customer Obligations Document?

All customers should have read and signed our customer's obligations document. This document contains important safety requirements or obligations, if you are using Dawn AC. Sometimes with the change of personnel you might not be aware of the content of this document. Please let us know if you require a fresh copy.

Reduce the Risk of Harm to Patients by 700%

A few years ago we had risk management experts examine the computer aided anticoagulation management process and they produced a vital report.

It concluded that if a rigorous independent check of the computer produced dose instruction is made before issue to the patient, by a competent healthcare professional, the risk of harm to a patient is reduced by a factor of approximately 600 to 700% when compared to not carrying out an additional check.

Please see our website http://www.4s-dawn.com/dawnac to obtain a copy of the report.

15^th Benchmarking Service Run Completed with 200,000 patients

Eighty-two centres from around the World participated in the 15^th Benchmarking. Data from 200,000 patients with over 1,560,000 INRs across four target INR ranges were analysed. This represents an increase in patient numbers from the previous run of nearly 7%. Participating members should have received their comprehensive reports showing how they have performed over the last six months.

New Analysis Work planned on Benchmarking Analysis

Last year we were awarded a three-year CASE studentship in conjunction with Lancaster University, to carry out research into the use of fuzzy logic models to help improve outcomes in the area of thrombosis. The student is now in post.

There are number of areas where advanced computing techniques can be used to help improve decision making especially when the information is not precise or incomplete i.e. fuzzy. Here are a few examples:

The safest length of treatment for DVT patients
The diagnosis of DVT/PE
Chest pain diagnosis

These techniques are non linear as compared to normal statistical models and often provide better prediction models. Also as the dataset expands the model is self improving.

Initially we will commence work to improve the analysis provided in the Benchmarking Service. The first phase will be to identify the key factors explaining the difference between top performing centres from poor performing. Also, we will look to see if we can identify patterns of INRs that lead to INRs > 6 or < 1.4. I will be writing to Benchmarking participants seeking their clearance to use their annonymised data.

Note, we are still looking for datasets that our customers could provide us with to facilitate the study. If you have some data that has been analysed in the conventional statistical way and would like to compare an alternative type of analysis, please drop me an email.

Special Discounts available until 28^th February for Customers

All customers should have received a special offer letter/email offering 25% discount on additional users, additional patients, and the Induction module for orders received and invoiced before 28^th February 2006.

Also, if you wish a quotation to migrate from V6 to our web browser based V7 please do not hesitate to contact me for a quotation. There is a 10% discount on the upgrade cost to Version 7 for orders received and invoiced before 28^th February 2006. Version 7 users are also entitled to a 50% discount on additional users and patients purchased and invoiced before 30^th November 2006.

Syd Stewart

Managing Director

End of Newsletter

“We Really Care"

“Dawn AC is an easy to use, adaptable, powerful, and comprehensive PC based Anticoagulation Software System. It covers the complete oral anticoagulation life cycle with Induction and Maintenance Modules “

“Lancet Nov 7th 1998, Multi-centred Randomised Trial using Dawn AC shows computer aided dosage leads to INR control 20 to 30% better than medical experts”