Dec. 14, 2019

One of my cycling friends called me on Tuesday night and was upset. His brother, who had diabetes and was on a pump, had gone into the hospital with a broken collarbone from a cycling accident. The hospitalist decided to keep him overnight for observation, and per hospital policy his pump was removed. When he questioned this he was told no one in the hospital knew how to operate it.

He begrudgingly agreed and gave the nurse his daily basal use, his carb ratio and correction factor, figuring they would just dose him with basal and rapid insulin. In the morning they brought him breakfast and the nurse checked glucose and dosed insulin based on a “standard” sliding scale. When he asked about a dose for the meal, he was told, “We don’t do that here, but don’t worry, we will check your glucose at lunch and fix it then.”

You probably already know what the result was, but more importantly it shows the lack of knowledge for accurate insulin use in that hospital.

It appears that is not an exception to the rule, but the norm in the hospital setting, as seen by the information that Kassey James, Pharm.D. Candidate, LECOM School of Pharmacy, has found in her research of the care levels of diabetes in hospitals.

 

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We can make a difference!

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Dave Joffe

Editor-in-chief