CUSTOMER STORY
Faster DKA Resolution for Diabetes: How Health First Improved Patient Care With Pharmacy Surveillance Software
Background
Health First is a 1,000-bed hospital system spread out across four different locations with a decentralized pharmacy team. Pharmacists are often at a different location or on another floor from the patients they’re treating, operating via telehealth and data from their EHR and pharmacy surveillance software to understand each patient’s needs.
For patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), the tele-ICU pharmacy team wanted to understand and demonstrate how interventions by a teleICU pharmacist affected patients with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) compared to the standard of care.
DKA is a serious and potentially life-threatening complication of diabetes that occurs most often in those with type 1 diabetes. To understand the efficacy of their interventions for DKA, Health First started by digging into the data and analytics in their pharmacy surveillance software, powered by Inovalon.
Understanding DKA treatment trends with data analytics and clinical support
As long-time users of Inovalon’s VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance™, the pharmacy team at Health First knew there was a tremendous amount of data readily available to them – but they needed help turning all their DKA treatment data into usable reports to understand the value of pharmacist interventions for this condition.
The combined power of data, built-in analytics, and the clinical support team behind the software gave Health First the clarity they needed.
Data access and analytics
VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance gives users the data insights they need to improve patient care. For Health First, the ability to request specific data points from this software and their EHR, build a custom report, and fine-tune that report to deliver exactly what they needed was instrumental in understanding their DKA treatment trends.
“There is so much flexibility with report building, which is the golden gem when it comes to this solution. Many do not know what you can really do when it comes to reporting, and the amount of time saved in data pulls was outstanding.” – Mike Sanchez, System Clinical Pharmacy Manager, Health First
Clinical expertise
Health First wasn’t building their custom reports alone. The clinical team at Inovalon, each with 10+ years of pharmacy knowledge, worked closely with Health First to create reports with speed and precision. Together, they identified reporting needs and pulled the data on all patients with DKA to establish detailed, easy-to-understand reports.
The custom reports included sample size, number of patients, inclusion and exclusion criteria, time to resolve DKA, serum bicarbonate levels, arterial pH, and baseline labs (glucose, renal functions, insulin drip vs. subcutaneous (SQ) insulin, hypoglycemic events).
Thanks to the VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance data feeds and the expert support of the clinical team, building custom reports was easier and much faster.
“It would have taken our team months of manually pulling data and running the analytics otherwise,” said Sanchez. “With Inovalon’s clinical support, you have a dedicated clinician that can help you narrow down and customize reporting, saving us lots of time.”
Improved patient outcomes for DKA
VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance helped Health First achieve and understand the benefits of faster DKA resolution with tele-ICU pharmacists. Results included less time between lab draws and patient care, and higher volumes of insulin and fluids infused than in patients with protocol-driven therapy.
These outcomes were possible thanks to the power of near real-time, detailed reporting in the pharmacy surveillance software. Data collection and analytics within the software helped highlight the impact that the tele-ICU pharmacists had in identifying patients in need of DKA treatment and intervening sooner.
For example, the configurable reports in the solution were able to identify the date and time of when SQ insulin started versus when insulin drip ended, which played a key role in minimizing hypoglycemic events.
”We also saw that our pharmacists were able to go beyond that order set and have a higher amount of insulin dosing – without a higher increase in severe hypoglycemia, which was very encouraging.
Mike SanchezSystem Clinical Pharmacy Manager, Health First
Enhancing patient care beyond Health First
Health First’s success in improving DKA management is reaching far beyond their hospital walls and their patient community – their datadriven approach is setting an example for other institutions nationally. The organization was recently published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, highlighting the need for improved interventions and management of DKA patients.
When reflecting on the outcomes for their community and the value of the findings for other institutions, Sanchez shared, “VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance helped us learn about this problem in our organization and understand the need for greater awareness around DKA management. The opportunity to intervene when it came to timely labs, fluid resuscitation, insulin drips and higher rates…all of this helped us create protocols that led to improvements.”
Better Patient Care, Powered by Better Surveillance Software
VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance helps pharmacists across care settings improve patient outcomes by better highlighting care needs. The solution was built by clinicians, for clinicians, to support patient care with detailed data at your fingertips.
Discover the difference of having the right data at the right time. Contact our team today.
