MEASURE IT, IMPROVE IT:the Safer Patients Initiative and quality improvement in subcutaneous insulin therapy for hospital in-patients

NHS Tayside, UK, identified risks with subcutaneous insulin therapy for hospital in-patients: overlooked abnormal blood glucose readings; prescription errors and failure to administer insulin. Involvement in the Safer Patients Initiative provided opportunities to use different methods of quality improvement, to create a process that facilitated prevention, detection and mitigation of diabetes management problems for in-patients requiring subcutaneous insulin therapy. The aim was to explain these methods, their use and results obtained