Software Company Simplifies Glycemic Management for Clinicians and Pharmacists

In August, the insulin management software company Glytec unveiled the latest version of its Glucommander insulin dosing software to make it easier for providers, nurses, and pharmacists to offer optimal, personalized care. More than 300 hospitals in the U.S. use Glytec’s eGlycemic Management System® (eGMS®) for glycemic management for their patients.

Glytec chief medical officer Jordan Messler, MD, tells Endocrine News that there were three key areas in which the company is trying to improve glycemic management. The first is streamlining the transition from IV insulin to SubQ insulin. “We have a transition module and that’s one key area that we’ve made improvements for — trying to be more transparent with the information, making the process smoother for nurses and physicians and getting more information to the physicians and the pharmacists,” he says.

The next is improving hypoglycemia management by expanding medication options for pharmacists with dextrose 10% (D10) for when there are shortages of D50. “There have been some shortages of D50, so sites have used D10 and we’ve just enhanced the way we can present that information to sites. We’ve made it easier,” Messler says. “That’s improved management of hypoglycemia with D10, particularly because we’ve updated some of our recommendations for hypoglycemia management with oral carbohydrates based on research.”

Finally, Messler says they focused on making electronic health records and site integration as smooth as possible for physicians and nurses. “One of our goals over the last few years is to improve the integrations that we have with sites,” he says. “The electronic health record, making it more seamless, really trying to help the end-users, the front line nurses and physicians. We’ve been trying to improve that order set design, the ways that we integrate, and make the ordering of Glucommander as easy as possible.”

“Those are three big ones,” Messler says. “Improving transition IV to SubQ, enhanced hypoglycemia management, and then order set design. There are other little things under the hood to improve some technical and other pieces, but those are the three big ones for the end-users to see.”

Messler says that the goal is to make treating diabetes simpler for the front-line staff, to free up their cognitive load when managing insulin, especially in a setting like the ICU. “We continue to try to iterate and make this simpler, make the workflows better with the context of patient safety, which is always paramount. We believe we designed these things like transitions that’ll make those processes easier.”

This updated system is still young, but Messler says he expects positive results, from providers and patients, and he hopes responses will shape future developments. “We expect to hear that feedback and continue to find ways to improve the workflow for nursing, for physicians — improve it in such a way that they feel confident in the dosing so that with their sites that don’t have endocrinology support or don’t have all those diabetes education specialists, that they’ll feel confident in the management,” he says. “We just know that usual care, without Glucommander, often defaults to things that are simpler and not always best for the patient. We can get more accurate dosing of insulin, particularly transition IV to Sub-Q, keep it, the workflow, not time-consuming, and transparent and simpler, best for the nurses and ultimately best for the patients.”