CPD for Healthcare Professionals: Anticoagulation Management and Stroke Prevention

This course, accredited by UCL, is designed to develop the confidence and the competence of community and hospital based healthcare professionals (HCPs) to allow them to make sound, patient-centred clinical decisions to safely manage oral anticoagulant therapy. The material available online is supplemented with a forum that provides learners with the opportunity to discuss the material viewed, to share and debate best practice, and to develop support networks for the future. Highly-skilled mentors provide local support and skills-based learning.

After completing this CPD course, the learner will be able to:

• Describe how blood clots and how anticoagulant agents – vitamin K antagonists, heparin, antiplatelet agents and the direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) – affect blood clotting.
• Summarise the indications for anticoagulant therapy.
• Relate how the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodymanic principles of vitamin K antagonists are used to achieve and maintain anticoagulation control.
• Apply an understanding of the effects of other medication and dietary & lifestyle changes to response to treatment.
• Describe the side effect profile of warfarin.
• Demonstrate competence in dosing patients, in both the initiation of therapy and in maintenance therapy.
• Describe the advantages of computerised decision support systems (CDSS) for warfarin dose management and their limitations.
• Demonstrate competence in using dosing algorithms to manage warfarin therapy.
• Demonstrate competence in a patient-centred approach to educating those taking oral anticoagulants – vitamin K antagonists and DOACs.
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different models of anticoagulation management.
• Describe the operational processes and the practicalities of running a clinic.
• Describe the requirements of clinical governance for anticoagulation management, including the application of audit tools with performance indicators.
• Demonstrate the ability to use a near-patient testing coagulometer.