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.