COVID-19 Pandemic: Can We Adapt a System-wide Warfarin Monitoring Program and Maintain Safety

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in Ohio on March 9, 2020. We instituted policies regarding essential/nonessential visits and procedures and limiting patient and provider contact. Our 11 center hospital-based anticoagulation monitoring service (AMS) used a multifaceted approach to limit in-office visits for international normalized ratio (INR) monitoring: encouraging use of alternative agents, redistributing patients to lower volume centers, increased visit intervals for low risk patients with stable INR, and home point-of-care testing (POCT) for vulnerable patients.