Coags--Computerized Oral Anticoagulation Guidance System

The International Normalized Ratio (INR) is designed to standardize the reporting of prothrombin timeasurements in patients taking warfarin. To appropriately manage patients taking anticoagulants, abe achieved between too much or too little anticoagulation, which can respectively result in bleedinVariability and bias in INR determinations leads to errors in therapeutic management. Quantitative emagnitude of such errors have heretofore been unavailable. Using advanced probabilistic models for tNormalized Ratio (INR), we will design, test, and build COAGSa Computer- based Oral Anticoagulant Gurunning under Windows¿ to help clinicians and laboratories explore the complexities of oral anticoagbe a set of user-friendly tools to assist laboratories in analyzing their own data, conducting referthe implications of quality control performance on the INR and clinical decisions, conducting comparlaboratories, providing information to clinicians about the precision of INR data, and comparing difinstruments/reagents to one another to decide which is optimal for a particular laboratory setting awill test the algorithms and evaluate the utility of the approach in three laboratory settings durinenable users to perform sophisticated mathematical operations that realistically model the complexitanticoagulant monitoring and to make sound decisions based on the best data available. The Phase Ilthe results of the Phase I research. The outgrowth of this work will be an improvement in patient ouanticoagulant management decisions.