# Improving in-hospital diabetes awareness and transition of care by a digitalized diabetes management

## TL;DR

A digital diabetes management system improved hospital staff awareness and the quality of diabetes care transition for patients.

## Contribution

A digitalized diabetes management system was shown to significantly improve documentation of diabetes-specific information in discharge letters.

## Key findings

- The odds ratio for complete correct transition of diabetes-specific information was 2.80 in the digitalized system compared to usual care.
- Performance scores were significantly higher in the digitalized system (1.79 vs. 1.23).
- For newly diagnosed dysglycemia, the odds ratio for correct documentation increased to 9.22.

## Abstract

Diabetes as common comorbidity is associated with an impaired outcome for inpatients. Inadequate transition of dysglycemia specific information from hospital to outpatient setting may disrupt continuity of care and contribute to impaired patient outcome. We tested whether a digitalized diabetes management improves awareness of in-hospital health care professionals for diabetes as comorbidity.

SmartDiabetesCare, a digitalized diabetes management, was carried out prospectively on five non-ICU wards as a quality improvement project (QiP SDC) including systematic screening for dysglycemia at admission, flagging of identified cases, continuous glucose monitoring and a proactive diabetes-team. Chance for correctly documented dysglycemia specific information in discharge letters written during QiP SDC in comparison to usual diabetes care (UDC) was calculated and performance was assessed to evaluate the impact of QiP SDC on quality of diabetes-specific transition.

Discharge letters of 1141 cases were included in the analysis. Comparing QiP SDC to UDC, the odds ratio for complete correct transition of diabetes-specific information was 2.80 (95%CI: 1.48–5.29) in QiP SDC vs UDC. Accordingly, the performance score was significantly higher in QiP SDC (1.79 vs. 1.23, p < 0.01). If only patients with newly diagnosed dysglycemia were analyzed, OR for correct documentation increased to 9.22 (95%CI: 4.01–18.80) and performance score remained significantly higher in QiP SDC, but decreased compared to the overall population (0.60 vs. 0.16, p < 0.01).

A digitalized diabetes management may raise awareness for diabetes in in-hospital health care professionals and improve quality of diabetes data transition potentially increasing the chance for continuity of care.