{"id":2909,"date":"2015-01-28T12:32:12","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=2909"},"modified":"2021-02-17T12:55:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:55:44","slug":"better-blood-sugar-management-helps-reduce-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/better-blood-sugar-management-helps-reduce-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Better blood-sugar management helps reduce infections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-center\"><em>A team of doctors, nurses, administrators and others are making changes to reduce the risk of infection for surgical patients whose blood sugars are high.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Patients whose blood sugar is high when they go for surgery have a much higher risk of surgical site infections (SSIs). That\u2019s why Dr. Laura Hopkins has been leading a move to identify and manage blood sugars in patients headed for surgery.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cManaging blood sugars is part of our strategy to reduce SSIs,\u201d said Dr. Hopkins, gynecology-oncology surgeon. \u201cWe are focusing on the 13 percent of surgical patients with diabetes and the additional 10 to 30 percent who have undiagnosed diabetes or a risk of rising blood sugars during surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on those high-risk patients should help bring down The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s rate of SSIs. Dr. Hopkins and her team have worked hard over the past year to develop new screening and monitoring processes. Starting Feb. 2, the gynecology-oncology team will put the new processes into action. Once the kinks are worked out, the processes will be rolled out for other services.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will be one of the most complex and collaborative system changes that we have seen since the hospital joined NSQIP in 2010,\u201d she said. The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program provides data that helps the hospital plan its quality improvement measures, such as reducing SSIs.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive aligncenter wp-image-2912 size-full\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/YIMC_SSI.jpg\" alt=\"yimc-ssi\" width=\"640\" height=\"191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/YIMC_SSI.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/YIMC_SSI-600x179.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/YIMC_SSI-300x90.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the new processes, patients\u2019 blood sugars will be managed at three points:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Before surgery:<\/strong> Patients are screened with a test that shows if blood sugars have been in control or high recently. \u201cKnowing this lets us help patients get their blood sugars down before surgery, and it identifies which patients need glucose tests during and after surgery,\u201d said Endocrinologist Dr. Janine Malcolm.<\/li>\n<li><strong>During surgery:<\/strong> Blood sugars often rise as part of the body\u2019s natural response to stress, and the rise can be even greater in patients with diabetes. \u201cBy identifying patients at risk, we can monitor blood-sugar levels during surgery and give insulin if the levels get too high,\u201d said Anesthesiologist Dr. Sylvain Gagn\u00e9.<\/li>\n<li><strong>After surgery:<\/strong> Keeping blood sugars under control, especially during the first three days, reduces the risk of SSIs. \u201cWe have updated our standard protocol to use long-acting as well as short-acting insulin,\u201d said RN Filomena De Sousa. \u201cWe are also introducing an alert system. When blood glucose is too high, the nurse alerts the physician to review the patient\u2019s glucose management.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of doctors, nurses, administrators and others are making changes to reduce the risk of infection for surgical patients whose blood sugars are high. &nbsp; Patients whose blood sugar is high when they go for surgery have a much higher risk of surgical site infections (SSIs). That\u2019s why Dr. Laura Hopkins has been leading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}