24 Hours at AADE
Aug 7, 2013, 01:00 AM
I landed in Philadelphia and just had time to check into my motel before heading to a COI get together. Great to meet up with educators of like interests, see acquaintances and meet new people. I then had dinner with some wonderful people I have worked with from Vermont and California. It was like old home week!
Today started out with a morning workout and then heading to a variety of educational sessions, poster judging, and spending a bit of time at the exhibit hall (which I will return to tomorrow!).
One educational session that caught my eye as I was: “Prandial Coverage by Carbohydrate to Insulin Ratios in the Hospital." Since we are working diligently to educate our hospitalists and nurses about the value of using basal/bolus insulin vs sliding scale, I was ready to see what tips I could pick up. Some innovative ideas were presented to help physicians and nurses learn about carbohydrate counting. For example, having the carbohydrate counts in the physicians’ dining room; carbohydrate guessing games around foods in the break rooms; and challenges to see if given an insulin to carbohydrate ratio and sensitivity factor, a nurse could calculate their own insulin doses. What a great way to bring the ideas “home.” Another interesting idea was to have meal “lids” colored differently for those needing insulin. So as soon as the tray was delivered, the nurse could see it was a patient requiring insulin dosing.
In our hospital, the timing of prandial insulin is always a challenge. Nurses get busy doing other tasks and it is often more than an hour after the patient has completed the meal before insulin is administered. This hospital diabetes program organized a chime that would ring when meals were brought to the floor, so the nurses could be “sound” alerted to check BG values and be ready to give insulin when the meal was served. In unpredictable meal consumers insulin is still injected post meal. Perhaps a ring from the patient when they have completed the meal could be another way to alert the floor nurses to give insulin in a timely fashion.
The afternoon included scoring posters, presenting a session and attending a another on toddler through transition to college life. The day was topped off with dinner with fellow insulin pump trainers at a well attended function.
I plan to crawl under the covers soon and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another busy day. As I reflect on today, I am reminded that diabetes educators have to be some of the kindest, most caring people in the world. I’m so glad I can spend time with so many of them and share ideas and best practices! Hope you enjoy your virtual tours and blogs and hope you can attend AADE in person next year!