SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Click It Before You Stick It: A Student-Led Improvement Project

Pdf Summary

This student-led quality improvement initiative aimed to reduce excessive fingerstick blood glucose (FSBG) testing in hospitalized patients. The project focused on identifying “low-risk” patients—those not using insulin before admission, with blood glucose under 250 mg/dL during the first 72 hours of standard testing, receiving no more than 5 units of total daily insulin, and not taking hyperglycemia-inducing medications such as steroids.<br /><br />The intervention appears to have combined provider education with an electronic medical record (EMR) change. An educational handout was created for providers, and a live EMR intervention was implemented to support more appropriate testing practices.<br /><br />The project tracked measures related to reducing unnecessary FSBG checks and also monitored safety, including whether insulin had to be restarted after testing was reduced. The balance measure showed low numbers of patients needing insulin re-introduction both before and after the intervention, suggesting that reducing testing did not appear to compromise patient safety in this small sample.<br /><br />Overall, the initiative demonstrates that a targeted, student-led effort using education and EMR-based workflow changes can help address overuse of fingerstick glucose testing in low-risk hospitalized patients while maintaining safety.

Asset Subtitle

Samir Kamat

Meta Tag

Author List Alyssa Gontzes, Anne S. Linker, Caroline Liu, Grenye O’Malley, Jared Dashevsky, Madeline Floodstrand, Samir Kamat

Category Innovations

Concept Fingerstick Blood Glucose Testing

Concept Low-risk Patient

Concept Insulin

Concept Hospitalized Patient

Concept Blood Glucose

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Presenting Author Samir Kamat

Track Quality Improvement

Keywords

fingerstick blood glucose

FSBG testing

quality improvement

hospitalized patients

low-risk patients

EMR intervention

provider education

glucose monitoring

insulin safety

testing overuse

Fingerstick Blood Glucose Testing

Low-risk Patient

Insulin

Hospitalized Patient

Blood Glucose