Home Protime Machine

[anticoagulationurse]

hello,

just posting some info i thought some people might find useful.

a couple of years ago the fda released coaguchek xs for patient home use. this is so helpful for our long term truly homebound patients who find it so difficult to get to the "protime clinic" every month (or weekly in some unfortunate cases), and sometimes leads to non compliance with inr testing before and after we (hh nurses) are in the picture. if they have someone who can perform the test or are cognitively intact and reliable to do the test themselves and report to md for dosing instructions, they qualify. medicare pays for it with a doctor rx and so do other insurance companies. this only applies to people on long term coumadin/warfarin therapy such as for heart valve, etc. (not for joints, dvt, pe where they will hopefully be off it in a month to a year).

it also only applies to people with stable hematocrit within the acceptable fingerstick testing range, so they must have been screened for anemia first.

the machine is simple, has built in quality controls, no special maintenance required. simple to use, hard to screw up, etc. if you have a patient who is interested, and an md who agrees, provide the md's nurse with this phone number and all they have to do (or you can do it with their permission!) is call and roche coaguchek will get the ball rolling. 1-800-779-7616.

or, alternatively, attached is an order/rx form you can print for the doc to fill out and fax.

http://www.coaguchek.com/com/index.php?target=/en/professionals/products/coaguchek_xs_system

pretty cool:yeah:

CoaguChek order form.pdf

[caliotter3]

Thanks for the useful information.

[chenoaspirit, ASN, RN]

Interesting..

Thanks for the info!

[jnette, ASN, EMT-I]

I've heard about these... would be really helpful in HH even for the nurses to have.... but these little buggars are pretty darn expensive. Maybe someday they'll come down.. like everything else does eventually. :)

[annaedRN, RN]

We started using them about a year ago. The company basically lets us use the machines for "free" but we have to buy the test strips through them...which are like $6 a strip. But they are SO wonderful to have. We have 3 of them that we sign out when we need them. Haven't seen any patients have them in their homes though.