Anticoagulant use is prevalent and associated with significant potential for harm. Anticoagulation stewardship practice has emerged to address care gaps and promote safe, effective, and cost-conscious anticoagulation use across health care systems. We present 4 patient cases describing common challenges in anticoagulation management: inappropriate dosing of direct oral anticoagulants, the diagnosis and management of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, periprocedural anticoagulation management, and heavy menstrual bleeding on anticoagulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have complex dosing regimens and are often incorrectly prescribed. We evaluated a nationwide DOAC population management dashboard rollout whose purpose includes pharmacist review and correction of off-label dosing prescriptions.
Methods And Results: Using data from Veterans Health Affairs, we identified all patients prescribed DOACs for atrial fibrillation or venous thromboembolism between August 2015 and December 2019.
Background: Direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) medications are frequently associated with inappropriate prescribing and adverse events. To improve the safe use of DOACs, health systems are implementing population health tools within their electronic health record (EHR). While EHR informatics tools can help increase awareness of inappropriate prescribing of medications, a lack of empowerment (or insufficient empowerment) of nonphysicians to implement change is a key barrier.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDirect oral anticoagulants (DOAC) are the most widely prescribed oral anticoagulants in the United States. Despite advantages over warfarin, system-level improvements are needed to optimize outcomes. While Veterans Health Administration and others have described successful DOAC management dashboard implementation, the extent of use nationally is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis scoping review summarizes the extent and characteristics of the published literature describing digital population management dashboards implemented to improve the quality of anticoagulant management. A standardized search protocol was executed to identify relevant manuscripts published between January 1, 2015 and May 31, 2022. The resulting records were systematically evaluated by multiple blinded reviewers and the findings from selected papers were evaluated and summarized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Direct oral anticoagulants are first-line therapy for common thrombotic conditions, including atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism. Despite their strong efficacy and safety profile, evidence-based prescribing can be challenging given differences in dosing based on indication, renal function, and drug-drug interactions. The Veterans Health Affairs developed and implemented a population management dashboard to support pharmacist review of anticoagulant prescribing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe prediction of survival time for those immersed in water remains a key element in the function of search and rescue organisations around the globe. The data on which such predictions are made come from laboratory studies and actual incidents. The UK National Immersion Incident Survey (UKNIIS) represents one of the largest surveys undertaken in this area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the past decade, direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have contributed to a major paradigm shift in thrombosis management, replacing vitamin K antagonists as the most commonly prescribed anticoagulants in many countries. While DOACs provide distinct advantages over warfarin (eg, convenience, simplicity, and safety), they are frequently associated with inappropriate prescribing and adverse events. These events have prompted regulatory agencies to mandate oversight, which individual institutions may find difficult to comply with given limited resources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInappropriate direct acting oral anti-coagulants (DOAC) prescribing increases the risk of adverse events. Population health management tools (PMTs) could help reduce adverse events through the early, efficient identification of questionable prescribing practices, but the impact of such a tool remains unknown. We evaluated the effect of PMT use on questionable DOAC dosing rates within 40 VHA medical centers and whether this effect differed by DOAC indication or agent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUrea-nitrogen (N) is commonly applied to crop fields, yet it is not routinely monitored despite its association with reduced water quality and its ability to increase toxicity of certain phytoplankton species. The purpose of this work was to characterize temporal fluctuations in urea-N concentrations and associated environmental conditions to infer sources of urea-N in agricultural drainage ditches. Physicochemical properties and N forms in ditch waters were measured weekly during the growing seasons of 2015-2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Use of direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC) is rapidly growing for treatment of atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism. However, incorrect dosing of these medications is common and puts patients at risk of adverse drug events. One way to improve safe prescribing is the use of population health tools, including interactive dashboards built into the electronic health record (EHR).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvery year, hundreds of people die at sea because of vessel and airplane accidents. A key challenge in reducing the number of these fatalities is to make Search and Rescue (SAR) algorithms more efficient. Here, we address this challenge by uncovering hidden TRansient Attracting Profiles (TRAPs) in ocean-surface velocity data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a viral infection that can, in severe cases, result in cytokine storm, systemic inflammatory response and coagulopathy that is prognostic of poor outcomes. While some, but not all, laboratory findings appear similar to sepsis-associated disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC), COVID-19- induced coagulopathy (CIC) appears to be more prothrombotic than hemorrhagic. It has been postulated that CIC may be an uncontrolled immunothrombotic response to COVID-19, and there is growing evidence of venous and arterial thromboembolic events in these critically ill patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgricultural drainage ditches represent a major source of nutrient pollution. Shifts in nitrogen source and use of animal manures have changed the bacterial composition both in species of bacteria and their abundance in agricultural ditches. This change affects how nitrogen is being cycled and potentially the final forms of available nutrients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe optimal monitoring and follow-up strategy for long-term direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) therapy has not been established. Historically, at our medical center, DOAC patients were referred to a clinical pharmacy specialist managed anticoagulation clinic (AC) for monitoring via regularly scheduled encounters (face-to-face or telephone). To determine if implementation of a DOAC Population Management Tool (PMT) designed to identify patients who most likely require clinical review and possibly intervention, would improve the efficacy (interventions per patient) and efficiency (time invested to generate an intervention) of monitoring over AC practices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUrea-N is linked to harmful algal blooms in lakes and estuaries, and urea-N-based fertilizers have been implicated as a source. However, the export of urea-N-based fertilizers appears unlikely, as high concentrations of urea-N are most commonly found in surface waters outside periods of fertilization. To evaluate possible autochthonous production of urea-N, we monitored urea-N released from drainage ditch sediments using mesocosms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF