RE: [IPk] insulin delivery closed loop for diabetics in intensive care
Hi Jackie,
It's absolutely true that uncontrolled glucose levels, especially following
surgery, contribute directly and indirectly to thouands of deaths and
delayed recoveries every year. The work of Van den Bergh and Furnary in
particular has scared the living daylights out of a lot of thought leaders
in the hospital sector. Look 'em up on PubMed (you can find their papers
just by typing in their surnames, they are pretty unique).
It really is hard to get nurses to check glucose levels on schedule (they
can think of so many other "more important" things to do, or lose track of
time, or assume someone else just did it or someone else is about to do
it....), so doctors are reluctant to prescribe insulin. It scares everyone
on a ward when a patient goes into a severe hypo. Adequate insulin delivery
with inadequate monitoring leads to a very high risk of a patient going
hypo. Therefore many doctors simply don't want to prescribe insulin even if
a patient really needs it. You can't see the damage being done within the
body when glucose levels are too high so they can pretend there is nothing
wrong. A hypo, on the other hand, causes a scene and a ruckus.
Not giving insulin to patients who need it is totally self-serving and a
violation of the Hippocratic Oath as far as I am concerned but they get away
with it every day.
Melissa
Type 1 13+ years; MiniMed pumper 7.5 years; Animas pumper 2 years 10 months;
did a little research re insulin use in hospitals last year and recently
worked issues re in-hospital glucose monitoring....
.
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