Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve G  Warfarin - this demonstrates how successful the nurses have been at expanding their roles, and doing things that we should be doing. Monitoring INR is ideally suited for pharmacists - warfarin interacts with foods, vitamins, drugs and nurses don't really have the knowledge needed. INR monitoring can be done in community pharmacy, and patients love it when compared to their experience of hospital clinics. Enzyme inducers would be expected to decrease INR. |
roche do a nifty machine for INR readings called the coaguchek - if you ask them really nicely they'll send you a machine for free. I tried (unsuccessfully) to set up INR services in two pcts - be warned - some pcts and surgeries can be very unhelpful when you try to set up a pioneer service...
there was a good article in the pj in may i think (might have been early june) that gave an excellent list of drugs, otc stuff, herbs and foods that can potentially affect INR (although some of it was a little over-cautious).