Elevate Your Diabetes Care Practice: A Focus for Diabetes Awareness Month

As Diabetes Awareness Month begins, it’s an opportune time to evaluate the care that diabetic patients receive in your hospital. Our discussions with potential clients often reveal a heavy reliance on sliding scale insulin for diabetes management. This practice is surprising, considering that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) strongly advises against this method of insulin therapy.

The Challenges of Diabetes Management in Hospitals

Hospitalized patients frequently present with multiple acute medical issues, and with up to one-third receiving insulin, effective diabetes management can easily be overlooked. For some providers, diabetes management becomes “background noise,” leading to an overreliance on sliding scale insulin, which, while convenient, offers limited benefits. Research has shown that sliding scale regimens often fail to control hyperglycemia effectively, result in higher rates of hypoglycemia, and are linked to prolonged hospital stays.

An insulin regimen with basal, prandial, and correction components is the preferred treatment for noncritically ill hospitalized patients. This regimen can be challenging as it requires clinicians to have an adequate knowledge of insulin kinetics.  It also requires the monitoring of a patient’s response to insulin and frequent dosing adjustments.  There is also a challenge for nursing staff who must adjust the dose of prandial insulin based on a patient’s nutritional intake and calculate a correction dose to cover hyperglycemia.

Leveraging Technology for Better Outcomes

The use of a computerized insulin dosing algorithm, such as EndoTool®, eliminates many of the challenges clinicians face in prescribing a bolus, prandial, correction regimen.  A dosing regimen is calculated utilizing multiple clinical factors including the patient’s diabetes type, weight, age, kidney function, steroid use and planned carbohydrate intake.  With each meal, it provides the bedside nurse with an insulin dose recommendation to cover hyperglycemia and planned carbohydrate intake. The application calculates a new insulin dosing plan based on the patient’s response to insulin the prior day. Hospitals using the software noted a reduction in calls to providers and improved rates of hypoglycemia.

Encouraging a Culture of Awareness and Improvement

During Diabetes Awareness Month, I encourage you to reassess how diabetes is managed in your institution. This is an opportunity to explore alternatives to sliding scale insulin therapy and to consider available solutions that ensure a high standard of care for patients while supporting already burdened clinicians.

Consider organizing educational sessions for staff to discuss best practices in diabetes management and to share successful strategies from other institutions. Engaging in interdisciplinary collaboration can foster a more comprehensive approach to patient care, ultimately leading to better outcomes for those living with diabetes.

Let’s take this month to commit to improving diabetes care in our hospitals, ensuring that every patient receives the attention and management they deserve.

About EndoTool

Made by Monarch Medical Technologies, EndoTool is the only patient-specific insulin dosing system which simplifies the complex task of glycemic management in hospital environments. The recommended dosing is different for each patient based on multiple clinical characteristics. The FDA-cleared platform is utilized in hundreds of hospitals across the United States and is fully integrated with all major electronic medical records. To see how EndoTool can support your health system, get in touch today.