Electronic Measurement of a Clinical Quality Measure for Inpatient Hypoglycemic Events: A Multicenter Validation...

Hypoglycemia related to antidiabetic drugs (ADDs) is important iatrogenic harm in hospitalized patients. Electronic identification of ADD-related hypoglycemia may be an efficient, reliable method to inform quality improvement.

Develop electronic queries of electronic health records for facility-wide and unit-specific inpatient hypoglycemia event rates and validate query findings with manual chart review.

Electronic queries were created to associate blood glucose (BG) values with ADD administration and inpatient location in 3 tertiary care hospitals with Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (PCORnet) databases. Queries were based on National Quality Forum criteria with hypoglycemia thresholds <40 and <54 mg/dL, and validated using a stratified random sample of 321 BG events. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated with manual chart review as the reference standard.

The sensitivity and specificity of queries for hypoglycemia events were 97.3% [95% confidence interval (CI), 90.5%-99.7%] and 100.0% (95% CI, 92.6%-100.0%), respectively for BG <40 mg/dL, and 97.7% (95% CI, 93.3%-99.5%) and 100.0% (95% CI, 95.3%-100.0%), respectively for <54 mg/dL. The sensitivity and specificity of the query for identifying ADD days were 91.8% (95% CI, 89.2%-94.0%) and 99.0% (95% CI, 97.5%-99.7%). Of 48 events missed by the queries, 37 (77.1%) were due to incomplete identification of insulin administered by infusion. Facility-wide hypoglycemia rates were 0.4%-0.8% (BG <40 mg/dL) and 1.9%-3.0% (BG <54 mg/dL); rates varied by patient care unit.

Electronic queries can accurately identify inpatient hypoglycemia. Implementation in non-PCORnet-participating facilities should be assessed, with particular attention to patient location and insulin infusions.