GH-01 How does best practice advisories for the electronic medical record improve hypoglycemic protocol compliance for acute inpatients?
Abstract
Hypoglycemia can be detrimental to a patient. It increases the risk for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disorders, increased length of stay, and mortality. Controlling blood sugars are essential to healing in the hospital. The hypoglycemic protocol recommended by the American Diabetes Association can be a daunting task due to it being a total of five steps that takes over three hours to complete. In my organization, nurses often miss steps in this process possibly leading to the patient becoming more hypoglycemic. The hypoglycemic protocol has been an opportunity for improvement for two years.
As part of the improvement process, nurse leaders were given access to a daily report in Energy and Performance Information Center (EPIC) electronic medical record (EMR). They had to audit patients that were hypoglycemic and assess if the nurse followed all steps of the protocol.
Using this process, the protocol compliance only improved by five percent. The research conducted was to compare the use of automatic best practice advisories in the electronic medical record to chart auditing with feedback by nurse leaders.
A systematic review of the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Academic Search Ultimate, and Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition was conducted to answer the question “How do automatic best practice advisories in the electronic medical record improve hypoglycemic protocol compliance for acute inpatients compared to feedback from auditing over three months?”
After review of the literature, three articles were identified that concluded that best practice advisories or tasks improved compliance with completing the three scheduled rechecks in the hypoglycemic protocol. In conclusion, Best practice advisories are recommended for protocols with time sensitive tasks.
Key terms: Best practice advisory, hypoglycemic protocols, electronic medical record, tasks, patients, nurses
GH-01 How does best practice advisories for the electronic medical record improve hypoglycemic protocol compliance for acute inpatients?
Hypoglycemia can be detrimental to a patient. It increases the risk for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disorders, increased length of stay, and mortality. Controlling blood sugars are essential to healing in the hospital. The hypoglycemic protocol recommended by the American Diabetes Association can be a daunting task due to it being a total of five steps that takes over three hours to complete. In my organization, nurses often miss steps in this process possibly leading to the patient becoming more hypoglycemic. The hypoglycemic protocol has been an opportunity for improvement for two years.
As part of the improvement process, nurse leaders were given access to a daily report in Energy and Performance Information Center (EPIC) electronic medical record (EMR). They had to audit patients that were hypoglycemic and assess if the nurse followed all steps of the protocol.
Using this process, the protocol compliance only improved by five percent. The research conducted was to compare the use of automatic best practice advisories in the electronic medical record to chart auditing with feedback by nurse leaders.
A systematic review of the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Academic Search Ultimate, and Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition was conducted to answer the question “How do automatic best practice advisories in the electronic medical record improve hypoglycemic protocol compliance for acute inpatients compared to feedback from auditing over three months?”
After review of the literature, three articles were identified that concluded that best practice advisories or tasks improved compliance with completing the three scheduled rechecks in the hypoglycemic protocol. In conclusion, Best practice advisories are recommended for protocols with time sensitive tasks.
Key terms: Best practice advisory, hypoglycemic protocols, electronic medical record, tasks, patients, nurses