NEWS: Vital learning about inpatient diabetes care

Collaborative success for Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC), University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) and MIMS Learning website in sharing vital learning about inpatient diabetes care 

The LDC and UHL Diabetes team have been collaborating with MIMS Learning for nearly a year and are delighted that their free ‘learning plan’ for diabetes-related emergencies has been recognised as one of the most successful MIMS learning courses.

In February 2022, the collaboration launched a free, online diabetes learning plan on managing diabetes-related emergencies in hospital.

Across three modules, consultant diabetologist Dr Kath Higgins (University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK) looked at hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia, diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state, and principles for safe management of diabetes in hospital. The learning plan has been modelled on content provided by the Inpatient Diabetes Training and Support (ITS) eToolkit.

Aimed at secondary healthcare professionals with an interest in diabetes, the plan is worth three CPD hours overall. Learners can complete the full plan or access an individual module of their choosing, available on the MIMS Learning diabetes specialty page.

Dr Tom Crabtree, MIMS Learning diabetes clinical adviser and ABCD clinical research fellow, commented: “As I mentioned in an editorial for MIMS Learning (Diabetes research briefing November 2022), Dhatariya et al. recently highlighted that the care of inpatients with diabetes is an underfunded and under-researched area. Many of us working in the field of diabetes are all too aware of the potential safety issues around insulin use and how suboptimal management of diabetes can lead to emergencies such as diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). However, we recognise that people with diabetes often present at hospital with non-diabetes conditions and, thus, are treated by non-diabetes specialists.
Therefore, these learning plans provide critical, and much-needed, updates for non-diabetes hospital doctors and nurses about diabetes emergencies, such as DKA and the safe in-hospital use of insulin and technologies.
Thank you to the team at Leicester for working with MIMS Learning on these learning plans. They are a fantastic resource!”

Pat Anderson, Editor, MIMS Learning added: "MIMS Learning has been an established provider of clinical education for primary care for many years and recently has started to provide clinical CPD for hospital doctors and nurses. We identified a gap in educational provision around safe diabetes care in hospital and were delighted when we discovered the evidence based ITS Diabetes training materials. We felt there was scope for a partnership through which MIMS Learning could bring these materials to a wider audience and Leicester Hospitals could share its learning more widely. We felt MIMS Learning was the ideal platform to bring these excellent learning resources to a wider audience and we have really enjoyed working with Dr Kath Higgins and her team.

Dr Kath Higgins said: “The success of the MIMS Learning Diabetes modules has been phenomenal, with over 3,430 learners signed up as of October 2022, and we have had some fantastic learner feedback. We are delighted that `Diabetes at the front door' has been recognised as one of the most popular MIMS Learning courses.”

In fact, the plan has been so successful that LDC and MIMS Learning have collaborated on a new learning plan: Diabetes in hospital learning plan: safe use of insulin and technologies. This plan covers the safe in-hospital use of subcutaneous insulin, the safe in-hospital use of variable rate intravenous insulin infusion, and the safe use of technologies for inpatients with diabetes.

For more information about the Diabetes MIMS Learning plan and diabetes-related CPD content, visit MIMS Learning.

For more information about Inpatient Diabetes Training and Support (ITS), visit https://www.inpatientdiabetes.org.uk/.