Evaluating the Impact of Inadequate Meal Consumption on Insulin-Related Hypoglycemia in Hospitalized Patients.

Objective: Meal intake is sometimes reduced in hospitalized patients. Meal-time insulin administration can cause hypoglycemia when a meal is not consumed. Inpatient providers may avoid ordering meal-time insulin due to hypoglycemia concerns, which can result in hyperglycemia.

What Can We Learn From Point-of-Care Blood Glucose Values Deleted and Repeated by Nurses?

Background: Hospitals rely on point-of-care (POC) blood glucose (BG) values to guide important decisions related to insulin administration and glycemic control. Evaluation of POC BG in hospitalized patients is associated with measurement and operator errors. Based on a previous quality improvement (QI) project we introduced an option for operators to delete and repeat POC BG values suspected as erroneous.

Point-of-care blood glucose measurement errors overestimate hypoglycaemia rates in critically ill patients.

Background: Hypoglycaemia is associated with morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients, and many hospitals have programmes to minimize hypoglycaemia rates. Recent studies have established the hypoglycaemic patient-day as a key metric and have published benchmark inpatient hypoglycaemia rates on the basis of point-of-care blood glucose data even though these values are prone to measurement errors.

Methods: A retrospective, cohort study including all patients admitted to Harborview Medical Center Intensive Care Units (ICUs) during 2010 and 2011 was conducted to evaluate a quality improvement programme to reduce inappropriate documentation of point-of-care blood glucose measurement errors.

Efficacy of diabetes nurse expert team program to improve nursing confidence and expertise in caring for hospitalized patients with diabetes mellitus.

Nursing care for hospitalized patients with diabetes has become more complex as evidence accumulates that inpatient glycemic control improves outcomes. Previous studies have highlighted challenges for educators in providing inpatient diabetes education to nurses. In this article, the authors show that a unit-based diabetes nurse expert team model, developed and led by a diabetes clinical nurse specialist, effectively increased nurses' confidence and expertise in inpatient diabetes care.

Evaluation of point-of-care blood glucose measurements in patients with diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperglycemic hyperosmolar syndrome admitted to a critical care unit.

Background: Point-of-care (POC) blood glucose (BG) measurement is currently not recommended in the treatment of patients presenting with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) or hyperglycemic hyperosmolar syndrome (HHS).

Methods: We prospectively evaluated and compared capillary and venous POC BG values with laboratory venous glucose in patients with DKA or HHS admitted to one critical care unit over 8 months.

Results: Venous laboratory glucose was strongly correlated with venous (r = 0.

The impact of inpatient point-of-care blood glucose quality control testing.

Analyze the effectiveness of mandated point-of-care (POC) blood glucose (BG) meter quality control (QC) testing. All POC BG QC tests were analyzed to evaluate operator and strip/meter error rates and institutional cost. POC BG QC test failure (17/103,580 over 24 months) was low and no meters failed subsequent linearity testing.

Improving insulin ordering safely: the development of an inpatient glycemic control program.

This report describes a Glycemic Control Program instituted at an academic regional level-one trauma center. Key interventions included: 1) development of a subcutaneous insulin physician order set, 2) use of a real-time data report to identify patients with out-of-range glucoses, and 3) implementation of a clinical intervention team. Over four years 18,087 patients admitted to non-critical care wards met our criteria as dysglycemic patients.