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Diabetes care and education specialists across the country convened in Houston, TX last week for the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) annual meeting. Notice, we avoided using the designation of diabetes educators. During the meeting, AADE announced the new name for its members, “diabetes care and education specialists,” or DCES for short. As Karen Kemmis, PT, DPT, RN, MS,...

While the amount of hospital resources wasted on medical supplies is relatively easy to calculate, the more insidious expenses – clinical personnel costs – are more difficult to quantify. However, when a Roanoke, Virginia hospital set out to improve patient outcomes by standardizing insulin dosing protocols, the facility discovered substantial savings by mechanizing this process....

According to the National Diabetes Statistics Report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, hyperglycemia and diabetes in the hospital setting affect 38% to 46% of non-critically ill hospitalized patients. With diabetes and hyperglycemia increasing in our society, increased morbidity, length of stay in the ICU and in the hospital, and higher infection rates and more ventilator days also...

A study at United Regional Health Care System (URHCS), a major 325-bed hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas, proves that safe and efficient glucose management not only improves the delivery of insulin therapy, but decreases overall length of stay and results in financial savings for the hospital. As part of its commitment to leverage advanced medical technology for the benefit of...

In hospitalized patients, managing blood glucose levels is a complex and sometimes controversial issue. For about 20 percent of the hospitalized population, hyperglycemia (excess blood sugar) has a significant detrimental impact, which includes increased mortality. This also correlates with increased morbidity, negative outcomes, increased length of stay in the ICU and in the hospital. Additionally, it is associated with higher...

How would you like to save your hospital almost $75,000 a year in potentially unreimbursed expenses? This was the realization Wilson Memorial Hospital, a 71-bed hospital in western Ohio, made when it decided it needed to find a better way to control blood glucose levels across the hospital. In 2007, Remote Automated Laboratory System, a glycemic benchmarking service, reported that...