Anyone use the CoaguCheck XS for PT/INR?

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Specializes in hospice, ortho,clinical review.

If you use this. I've used it successfully and not so much. My question pertains to the "5" error which is the blood wasn't applied properly. I go in from the side and it seems a crap shoot if it works or not (and fellow nurse state the same it works 50% of the time) I'm wondering if I'm doing something specifically wrong?

Like maybe touching the skin along with the drop or ??? I've not tried the turn the finger to drop the blood because that seems like to precise of an aim but idk? I know you nee a pea size/ladybug size drop of blood but I'm just wondering if you use this thing and have honed your skills, what seem to have helped perfect them?

Or maybe I really need to just practice blood draws even though I suck worse at those :(

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Specializes in Cardiac, Home Health, Primary Care.

If it's several of you perhaps the machine has something wrong with it. Typically as long as the blood drop is big enough and it "sucks up" enough blood it didn't give me any error. When I did get an error message I typically knew what I did wrong. Is there another machine you can try?

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Specializes in hospice, ortho,clinical review.

Funny thing is I used a different one. (I'm not sure how many we have we have 2 visiting nurse locations that we share with) and it only sucked it up 1/2 way but still gave a result that was deemed faulty. The other nurses have used different ones from what I know.

Sounds like you approach from the side too. Thanks for answering!

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One of my colleagues had a lot of difficulty getting the blood from the side and she called the company and was told it was fine to put the blood on top which is what I have been doing. I have had a few patients with high results need to get their INR checked via venipuncture and the results were similar.

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Specializes in hospice, ortho,clinical review.

Interesting you say that. Because that exact thing happened. Too high and apparently a mismatch between the PT/INR something about the ratio wasn't right so the MD ordered a stick. That result was 2 points off but I've since had to do 2 more blood draws which were successful so rather than driving out of my way for this machine that has to be babysat (can't be too hot/cold) I'm just going to keep perfecting my skills with a peripheral stick. Thanks for the answers!

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