Hospira Unveils TheraDoc Anticoagulation Assistant(TM) Knowledge Module to Help Hospitals Comply With Joint Commission Patient Safety Goal

LAKE FOREST, Ill., May 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hospira (NYSE: HSP), a leading provider of clinical information and medication delivery technologies, today introduced the new Anticoagulation Assistant™ knowledge module as part of its TheraDoc™ clinical surveillance platform. Anticoagulation Assistant is designed to help hospitals comply with a 2010 Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal to reduce the risk of adverse events associated with anticoagulation therapy.

Although anticoagulation therapy is widely used to effectively treat many conditions, adverse events frequently occur due to dosing complexities and difficulties monitoring the safety and efficacy of the medication. Anticoagulants are associated with approximately nine percent of all hospital adverse drug events (ADEs).(1) With 117,700 ADEs each year related to anticoagulant therapy, these types of medication errors represent an annual financial burden of up to $1 billion on the healthcare system.(1,2)

The Anticoagulation Assistant module helps clinicians prevent patient harm by tracking the condition of patients receiving anticoagulation therapy and providing early indications of potential therapeutic concerns or ADEs. Effective monitoring of anticoagulants is essential, with 6.2 percent of patients impacted by an anticoagulant medication error requiring medical intervention and 1.5 percent needing prolonged hospitalization.(3)

The launch of the Anticoagulation Assistant module follows the introduction of an Anticoagulation Alerts package in 2009. Designed for use with the TheraDoc Expert System Platform™ core technology, the Anticoagulation Assistant provides an expanded set of alerts, clinical case dashboards, intervention documentation and a patient flag model for tracking therapy based on Joint Commission standards. The Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal Accreditation Program indicates that hospitals use standardized practices for anticoagulation therapy and evaluate practices to help reduce the risk of ADEs associated with anticoagulants.(4) The Anticoagulation Assistant supports these important practices, helping to streamline caregiver communication, improve clinical workflow and enhance patient safety.

Pharmacists and clinicians at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) are using Hospira's TheraDoc Anticoagulation Assistant software to capture pertinent data and send anticoagulation-related alerts to staff to help prevent patient injury and document compliance with the National Patient Safety Goal.

"The TheraDoc platform has become the backbone of our anticoagulation program to help us quickly catch and document potential adverse events, tests that need to be ordered, or lab values that are too high or too low," said Sue Skledar, R.Ph., M.P.H., F.A.S.H.P., director of the Drug Use and Disease State Management Program at UPMC. "It's quick and efficient, and it can be set up to let you know immediately when something needs to be addressed. Rather than looking at five or six reports, TheraDoc provides a single, integrated system for alerting us if we need to take action."

According to Stanley Pestotnik, M.S., R.Ph., general manager, TheraDoc, Hospira, the Anticoagulation Assistant exemplifies the role the TheraDoc platform plays in helping clinicians address patient safety and medication error prevention with clinical information technology.  

"Hospira's TheraDoc system takes data from a range of sources within the hospital and turns it into actionable information, alerting caregivers to clinically significant events to help them make appropriate -- and timely -- interventions," Pestotnik said. "Our platform approach allows healthcare providers to address a variety of patient care issues, ranging from Joint Commission patient safety goals to unanticipated challenges such as the H1N1 influenza outbreak."  

With Hospira's patented TheraDoc Expert System Platform as the engine, the Anticoagulation Assistant complements several hospital surveillance modules already powered by TheraDoc, including the ADE Assistant™, Clinical Alerts Assistant™, Antibiotic Assistant™ and the company's leading TheraDoc module, Infection Control Assistant™. With 1.7 million hospital acquired infections (HAIs) occurring annually, Johns Hopkins used Infection Control Assistant to help reduce HAI confirmation time by 50 percent while achieving 98 percent accuracy of infection identification.(5,6) For more information about the TheraDoc platform, visit www.theradoc.com.

About Hospira

Hospira, Inc. is a global specialty pharmaceutical and medication delivery company dedicated to Advancing Wellness™. As the world leader in specialty generic injectable pharmaceuticals, Hospira offers one of the broadest portfolios of generic acute-care and oncology injectables, as well as integrated infusion therapy and medication management solutions. Through its products, Hospira helps improve the safety, cost and productivity of patient care. The company is headquartered in Lake Forest, Ill., and has approximately 13,500 employees. Learn more at www.hospira.com.

SOURCE Hospira, Inc.