Anticoagulation manager: development of a clinical decision support mobile application for management of anticoagulants.

Patients with certain clotting disorders or conditions have a greater risk of developing arterial or venous clots and downstream embolisms, strokes, and arterial insufficiency. These patients need prescription anticoagulant drugs to reduce the possibility of clot formation. However, historically, the clinical decision making workflow in determining the correct type and dosage of anticoagulant(s) is part science and part art. To address this problem, we developed Anticoagulation Manager, an intelligent clinical decision workflow management system on iOS-based mobile devices to help clinicians effectively choose the most appropriate and helpful follow-up clotting tests for patients with a common clotting profile. The app can provide physicians guidance to prescribe the most appropriate medication for patients in need of anticoagulant drugs. This intelligent app was jointly designed and developed by medical professionals in CDC and engineers at Georgia Tech, and will be evaluated by physicians for ease-of-use, robustness, flexibility, and scalability. Eventually, it will be deployed and shared in both physician community and developer community.