HemoSense INRatio2

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Message HemoSense INRatio2 The formation of blood clots in one’s arteries is never a good thing: a blood clot can block circulation and cause serious health problems such as a stroke, or even death. Because anticoagulant medicines vary in effectiveness based on individual circumstances—illness, changes in diet, alcohol consumption—a patient’s medications need frequent monitoring and may periodically require adjustment. Those individuals suffering from thrombotic disorders, such as damage from a heart attack, traditionally have traveled to clinical laboratories to have blood samples drawn so their coagulation parameters can be measured. Albeit effective, this process is inconvenient, costly, and time-consuming. HemoSense, a maker of in vitro diagnostic systems, wanted to make it easier for patients to frequently check up on their own well-being. The company partnered with IDEO to develop a self-testing monitor for analyzing coagulation parameters (prothrombin time [PT] reported as the international normalized ratio [INR]) at home. The team’s challenge was to create an instrument that was affordable, simple to use, and provided fast, accurate results. Together, they did just that. The INRatio2 is a handheld device that lets patients check their own PT/INR levels in less than 1 minute, using a single drop of blood from a finger prick. The straightforward, icon-based interface guides them through the process on a large, easy-to-read LCD screen: Insert a test strip (which automatically turns on the monitor), put a drop of blood on the strip, and in less than one minute the results are displayed. The INRatio2 simultaneously performs two levels of quantitative reportable quality-control tests to ensure the integrity of the results; if anything goes awry, it displays an error message and no INR results. Patients can then report the values to their physicians, who now have the best, most recent data to better manage the patient’s health. “INRatio2 obviates the need for frequent doctor visits and puts more control in the patient’s own hands,” Myra Per-Lee wrote for InventorSpot.com, a news and information site for innovators. The HemoSense monitor, which has a MSRP of $1,599 in the U.S., also won a 2009 Medical Design Excellence Award. The annual awards recognize medical devices that advance their industries and provide cutting-edge technology to improve patient care. http://www.ideo.com/work/hemosense-inratio2/

Helping patients on anti-coagulation medication monitor their own health

The formation of blood clots in one’s arteries is never a good thing: a blood clot can block circulation and cause serious health problems such as a stroke, or even death. Because anticoagulant medicines vary in effectiveness based on individual circumstances—illness, changes in diet, alcohol consumption—a patient’s medications need frequent monitoring and may periodically require adjustment. Those individuals suffering from thrombotic disorders, such as damage from a heart attack, traditionally have traveled to clinical laboratories to have blood samples drawn so their coagulation parameters can be measured. Albeit effective, this process is inconvenient, costly, and time-consuming.

HemoSense, a maker of in vitro diagnostic systems, wanted to make it easier for patients to frequently check up on their own well-being. The company partnered with IDEO to develop a self-testing monitor for analyzing coagulation parameters (prothrombin time [PT] reported as the international normalized ratio [INR]) at home. The team’s challenge was to create an instrument that was affordable, simple to use, and provided fast, accurate results.

Together, they did just that. The INRatio2 is a handheld device that lets patients check their own PT/INR levels in less than 1 minute, using a single drop of blood from a finger prick. The straightforward, icon-based interface guides them through the process on a large, easy-to-read LCD screen: Insert a test strip (which automatically turns on the monitor), put a drop of blood on the strip, and in less than one minute the results are displayed. The INRatio2 simultaneously performs two levels of quantitative reportable quality-control tests to ensure the integrity of the results; if anything goes awry, it displays an error message and no INR results. Patients can then report the values to their physicians, who now have the best, most recent data to better manage the patient’s health.

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Project date: 2008