The Endocrine Society has released a clinical practice guideline providing recommendations for practical and safe glycemic targets and describing protocols and system improvements required to achieve glycemic goals for hospitalized patients in non-critical care settings.

The new guideline suggests that all patients, independent of a previous diagnosis of diabetes, have their blood glucose levels tested upon admission to a hospital.

Hyperglycemia is associated with increased risk of health complications and mortality, according to the recommendations, and can appear even in non-diabetic hospitalized patients. Observational studies report that hyperglycemia is present in 32% to 38% of patients in community hospitals. Improvement in glycemic control results in lower rates of hospital complications in general medicine and surgery patients.

"Hyperglycemia is associated with prolonged hospital stay, increased incidence of infections and death in non-critically ill hospitalized patients," said Guillermo Umpierrez, MD, of Emory University in Atlanta and chairman of the task force that authored the clinical practice guideline.

"This new guideline contains consensus recommendations from experts in the field for the management of hyperglycemia in hospitalized patients in non-critical care settings."

Among the specific recommendations in the CPG:

• Glycemic targets should include a pre-meal glucose target of less than 140 mg/dl and a random blood glucose of less than 180 mg/dl for the majority of hospitalized patients with non-critical illness.

• All patients with diabetes who receive insulin treatments at home should be treated with a scheduled subcutaneous insulin regimen in the hospital.

• All patients with type 1 diabetes and most patients with type 2 diabetes who undergo surgical procedures should receive either intravenous continuous insulin infusion or subcutaneous basal insulin with bolus insulin as required to prevent hyperglycemia during the perioperative period.

• Bedside point-of-care glucose testing should be initiated in all patients with high glucose values on admission and in patients with or without a history of diabetes receiving nutrition either through IV or a feeding tube.

• All patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes should be transitioned to scheduled subcutaneous insulin therapy at least one to two hours before discontinuation of IV continuous insulin infusion.

"Management of Hyperglycemia in Hospitalized Patients in Non-Critical Care Setting: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," will appear in the February 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, a publication of The Endocrine Society.