Researchers at the Hospital General Universitario Doctor Balmis, in Alicante, and the ISABIAL research institute have developed Endocare, a protocol that sets out when to maintain, start or stop certain diabetes treatments during a hospital stay.
Until now, the standard recommendation for hospitalized people with type 2 diabetes was to use insulin alone, due to a lack of evidence on the safety of combining it with other drugs in that setting. Endocare provides clear clinical criteria for adding, alongside insulin, medications already common in outpatient type 2 diabetes treatment, tailoring medication to each patient's situation instead of applying a single insulin-only regimen to everyone.
Over nine months, the team evaluated close to a thousand patients admitted to various medical and surgical departments of the hospital, paying special attention to people with cardiovascular or kidney conditions. The new model cut hypoglycemia in half compared with standard treatment, and the protocol has now been integrated into the hospital's routine clinical practice.