“Life’s so much easier” with new self-care app for warfarin therapy patients

When it comes to self-care apps most patients hope it will make their lives a lot easier.

Anne, a 75-year-old warfarin therapy patient at the Three Spires Medical Practice, said using self-test app ‘engage’ has done just that – made life easier.

Warfarin therapy decreases the blood’s tendency to clot.

“The ‘engage’ support team have been very, very helpful – I think self-testing is a wonderful thing for people to be able to do… it just makes life so much easier”, Anne said.

After the patient self-tests, the app then sends their INR (international normalised ratio) results back to their clinic.

It is estimated that in the UK, there are about 1.25 million people currently prescribed oral anticoagulant drugs, with warfarin being the most frequently prescribed oral anticoagulant – according to an Anticoagulation Europe UK report.

Anne’s clinician and lead practice nurse at Three Spires, Pernille Wood said ‘engage’ makes dosing so much easier for patients.

“It has a formal training programme and will offer freedom and flexibility to both patients and healthcare professionals”, Wood said. “There will definitely be a cost saving (using engage) and there will be less need to have clinics.”

The makers behind the app, designed for people on warfarin therapy, are health technology providers LumiraDx Care Solutions who say the whole process is a fast, simple and convenient solution as the patient no longer has to undertake regular trips to the clinic.

In 2015 to 2016 the Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group piloted ‘engage’s’ self-testing with 78 out of 288 warfarin patients with figures revealing savings of around £70 of nurse time per patient and reducing clinical risk.

Clare Gardner, LumiraDX marketing manager said it is a simple and quick procedure to implement for busy care teams.

“With full patient education and training included in the package, it means the patient’s self-care is fully safe and supported, increasing clinic capacity which can then be diverted to other patients and services”, Gardner said.

LumiraDx Care Solutions is the home of INRstar, a software for anticoagulation management which is used in more than 2,700 locations across the UK. The app has been developed to fully integrate with this software.