Prevalence of hyper- and hypoglycemia among inpatients with diabetes: a national survey of 44 U.S. hospitals.

The recent demonstration (1–3) of the benefits of intensive glycemic control in hospitalized patients has renewed interest in inpatient management of diabetes. Poor glycemic control is a marker for poor quality of hospital care (4), as well as an important safety issue: insulin is one of five medications most associated with inpatient medication errors (5,6). Moreover, many hospitals continue to solely rely on insulin “sliding scales” despite the limitations of this approach (7,8). To gain a broader understanding of the current quality of inpatient diabetes management, we analyzed the prevalence and management of hyperand hypoglycemia among 999 patients with known diabetes treated in 44 hospitals across the U.S.