In late 2001, Greet van den Berghe published "intensive insulin
therapy in critically ill patients" in the New England Journal of
Medicine. She and her co-workers found that in a large cohort of patients, lowering blood
glucose values to normal levels (4.4 to 6.1 mmol/l, equivalent to 80
to 110 mg/dl) markedly improves outcome of these patients1. This finding sparked much interest in glucose
control in critically ill patients, and in recent years, many articles
on the subject have been published. Krinsley partially reproduced the
Leuven study, albeit in a before-after design instead of a randomized
controlled design2.
The "Surviving Sepsis Campaign" guidelines include glucose
control in their recommended therapies3,
and many ICUs have implemented at least some form
of tighter glucose control since 2001.
Physicians at many ICUs in which tight glucose control was performed
have found that glucose control is hard to achieve. Some ICUs have
experienced alarming rates of hypoglycemia, up to 42%4. An important advance to improve glucose
control is the implementation of a protocol in which the nurse is the
driving force, instead of the doctor1,5.
However, most nurse-based protocols consist of a few simple rules on
paper, and incidence of hypoglycemia is often 5-10 %. We hypothesized
that a computer may integrate more information and use more complex
calculations to achieve safer, more efficient glucose control. Read more
on the GRIP as a CDSS page.