The Albany NY-based Foundation for Quality Care, Inc. has received an empirical study grant from Medline Industries, Inc. for a project entitled: Warfarin Safety for Residents in Skilled Nursing Facilities. This study seeks to address the quality of therapeutic monitoring for the high risk drug, warfarin (a long term oral anticoagulant therapy medication). “Warfarin tops the list of ten dangerous drug interactions in long term care, and as many as 12% of the 1.6 million American nursing home residents receive long term oral anticoagulant therapy with warfarin to prevent strokes and other thromboembolic events,“ notes Karen Morris, RN, MS, Director of Clinical and Quality Services for the New York State Health Facilities Association (NYSHFA), and Warfarin Safety study Project Director. “This study will evaluate how improvements in policies, staff education, prescription management, and clinical monitoring can reduce the high incidence of fatal, life-threatening, or serious adverse warfarin-related events in the nursing home setting, the majority of which may be preventable,” Morris continued. This research study will be conducted in partnership with IPRO. Darren M. Triller, PharmD., IPRO’s Senior Director of Health Care Quality Improvement, will serve as the Principal Investigator. The Foundation was created in 2001 as an affiliated subsidiary of the New York State Health Facilities Association, a statewide trade association representing more than 250 skilled nursing facilities in New York State.