Pharmacist designed and nursing-driven insulin infusion protocol to achieve and maintain glycemic control in critical care patients

Abstract

The objective of the quality assessment was to develop and evaluate a modified nurse-driven insulin infusion protocol for intensive care unit patients and compare the hours needed to achieve a targeted glycemic range and duration within a goal range (80-110 mg/dL) to that of our traditional protocol. With our modified nurse-driven protocol, the median time to reach the goal for patients with diabetes was 11.5 hours versus 21.5 hours with the traditional protocol. Patients without diabetes reached the goal in 8 hours with the modified-nurse driven protocol versus 12 hours with the traditional protocol. Percentage of time within the goal improved from 14.6% to 20.7% for patients with diabetes and from 7% to 24.3% for patients without diabetes.