Why Now is the Time to Prioritize Inpatient Glycemic Management

This article originally appeared on Healthcare Business Today, and has been modified slightly to update with the latest COVID-19 numbers as of December 2020.

As of December 8th, 2020, more than fifteen million COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the United States, with almost 600,000 of those individuals requiring hospitalization. To better treat COVID-19 patients today and prepare for future cases, physicians need to use what we’ve learned over the past nine months. Doing so could be the difference between life and death.

What kind of changes do health systems need to make? Take blood sugar levels, for instance. As we’ve learned, individuals living with diabetes aren’t more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, but they have worse outcomes . In fact, a recent study showed that mortality rates for hospitalized COVID-19 patients with diabetes were four times greater than those without. Even more surprising was that mortality rates were seven times higher for people without diabetes who then experience high blood sugar during their hospital stay.

Proper glycemic control has been linked to improved outcomes across various conditions. Based on early studies, the same seems to be true for COVID-19. And even though glycemic care may not have been top of mind for clinicians in March, studies continue to show it’s a critical aspect of care. This concept becomes even more important as governing bodies issue new treatment guidelines.

How Treatment Can Alter Blood Sugars

In early September, the WHO issued treatment guidelines calling for corticosteroids to become the standard of care for patients with critical COVID-19 cases. The RECOVERY study showed the mortality reduction in COVID-19 patients that required oxygen while on dexamethasone.

The discovery of dexamethasone’s ability to help patients fight COVID-19 provided hope as we hope for other treatments, and ultimately a global vaccine. It also shines a light on how much has changed over the past nine months from a treatment perspective. And not applying and prioritizing these learnings to current treatments could create trouble for patients and providers alike.

While dexamethasone supports critically ill patients, like other steroids, it raises blood sugars, even in patients who do not have diabetes. Moreover, critically ill patients may also require artificial nutrition during hospitalization – another factor that alters blood sugar. Given what we know about mortality rates for people who unexpectedly experience high blood sugar, this is potentially very dangerous.

Enhancing Care Moving Forward

In a perfect setting, providers are able to consider every single symptom and possible treatment option. With a once-in-lifetime pandemic, though, providers were forced to triage care and focus on a myriad of symptoms before blood sugar – and that makes sense.

When a patient is having trouble breathing with declining oxygen levels, doctors are going to explore respiratory issues and prioritize if a ventilator is needed or not. Doctors, nurses and other first responders faced the impossible task of caring for patients with a disease they knew very little about.

But as we learn more, we can improve the quality of care and wellbeing of patients with enhanced care based on evidence. We now have the advantage against the disease of knowing what we didn’t know in the early months of 2020. So much information on the relationship between COVID-19 and glycemic characteristics have surfaced since March.

And it’s time for this evidenced-based approach to extend beyond COVID, too. We have a vast array of information on the adverse relationship between glycemic management and other medical conditions, from heart attacks to sepsis.

While providers will always attend to the primary condition first, monitoring blood glucose and keeping a patient in range should be a very close second. Since up to 40% of patients in the hospital setting have challenges with glucose management, it’s an issue that deserves much more attention.

Now is the time for hospital leaders to focus on treating glycemic management as aggressively as other symptoms and prioritizing treatment as a key component of care. Doing so has the potential to reduce the mortality rate for patients with and without diabetes.