Abstract:

As the popularity for insulin pump therapy to manage diabetes rises, the hospital setting is bound to acquire these patients. Currently there is not consensus among diabetes organizations, or guidelines from accrediting bodies on how to safely care for this patient population while in the hospital. Therefore, health care professionals in the hospital may struggle with how to best manage the insulin pump patient. To address this issue, a quality improvement program was designed to standardize insulin pump management. The primary aims were to reduce practice variation, promote safety, and optimize compliance and outcomes within this clinical setting. The nurse-designed program components are highly-structured and consist of policies, a contract, a competency, an order set, and specialty training for insulin pump resource nurses. This presentation will discuss system-wide steps for implementing this type of program, barriers to overcome, as well as explore successes toward achieving optimal outcomes.