Medical Center “AIMS” for Better Surgical Management of Patients with Diabetes

​A clinical decision support (CDS) system that prompts anesthesia providers to closely monitor the glucose levels of diabetic patients during surgery can improve patient outcomes by reducing instances of hyperglycemia and surgical-site infections after the procedure, according to a study published in the March 2017 issue of Anesthesiology. Diabetes and hyperglycemia are risk factors for infection complications in surgical patients. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, Tennessee) incorporated CDS into the hospital's anesthesia information management system (AIMS). It provides customized, automated prompts to remind anesthesia providers to measure a diabetic patient's glucose at specified intervals throughout a procedure if clinicians were not measuring the levels as needed.