At the end of October, Glytec welcomed more than 1,000 hospital executives, healthcare providers and industry leaders to its second annual Time to Target conference. Attendees virtually gathered at the two-day event to learn how to create best-in-class glycemic management programs, what strategies help drive clinical change and the role technology plays in the future of glycemic management.
For those who could not make the conference, there’s still time. Presentations will be available on-demand through December 2022. And if you’re looking for the top takeaways from the first day of the conference, we have you covered!
- The inpatient glycemic revolution is here. Glytec’s chief commercial officer, John Downey, and chief executive officer, Ed Furlong, kicked off the event by exploring the two drivers of change in the healthcare industry: clinical need and government intervention. They shared that the need for better inpatient glycemic care has been here for decades, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) brought it to the forefront with its recent eCQMs focused on severe hypo- and hyperglycemia.
- Mistakes happen with manual dosing calculations. Glytec’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jordan Messler, and senior director of clinical delivery, Dave Cooper, put a spotlight on the dangers of complex, manual insulin dosing calculations. In fact, they shared that some institutions report an 8.7x higher error rate with paper protocols compared to computerized support. The duo even asked attendees to partake in an exercise to calculate an insulin dose live during the session under a specified time constraint. The results were inconsistent and alarming.
- Glycemic change takes people, process and technology. Implementing change isn’t a one-time initiative, Dr. Messler explained. It takes a multidisciplinary team, executive support, department champions, standardization, metrics, a continuous improvement strategy, technology like Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and eGlycemic management systems, and more. It may seem daunting, but Dr. Andjela Drincic from the University of Nebraska Medical Center broke down how their framework earned the Society of Hospital Medicine’s top performer status for glycemic control and the best practices they followed to achieve this status.
- Standardization is critical for nurses. Ann Marie Blair, director of diabetes services at Piedmont Columbus Regional, explained the nurse’s role in driving process change, how technology supports standardization and why training is key to long-term success. Attendees also heard Barbara McLean, intensive care clinical nurse specialist at Grady Health System, explore how her organization standardized on Glytec's eGlycemic Management System, trained over 400 nurses and overcame several challenges to achieve less than 0.02% hypoglycemia incidents in the Emergency Department.
- Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) will be essential in the next chapter of inpatient management. The first day of the conference ended with a recap of diabetes technology to date from Dr. Guillermo Umpierrez, professor of medicine from the Emory University School of Medicine, as he looked ahead to CGM’s role in future of hospital care. While the industry awaits FDA approval for CGM use in the hospital, additional studies and further analysis of potential limitations, Dr. Umpierrez shared that there’s no denying the technology’s data is incredibly valuable to caretakers at the bedside moving forward.
Distilling a day packed with insights from the industry’s leading experts in glycemic management into a handful of takeaways was challenging. There are several other sessions and critical pieces of information to watch on demand. For instance, don’t miss Sonia Cooper, chief nursing officer of Sentara Princess Anne Hospital, and Cody Ericson, advanced practice nurse, inpatient diabetes management at Kaweah Health, discuss their continuous glycemic management improvement stories and how their health systems tackled practice change and created best practice frameworks for improving glycemic control. And worth watching in full is Glytec CEO Ed Furlong and CCO John Downey as they provide an industry-wide view of the inpatient diabetes landscape, including where Glytec fits.
For more information on how Glytec can help your health system, head to our resource page, https://glytecsystems.com/resources/.
To stay up to date on all things Time to Target, visit https://www.glytectimetotarget.com, and stay tuned for a recap of the second day of the conference.
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