Documenting home insulin pumps with U-500 insulin

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Wed, 11/14/2018 - 11:31
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Karin Terry
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Joined: 02/02/2009 - 08:13
Documenting home insulin pumps with U-500 insulin

We have a situation that has recurred several times, and we struggle with it every time.
Currently, there are no insulin pumps that have settings based on U-500 insulin. Periodically, we have patients who come in with U-500 in their pump, so their pump settings do not accurately reflect the number of units they are receiving. How do we document this pump in the EMR? We try to move away from their pump to our medications, but that comes with conversion issues as well.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem?
-Do you put actual pump settings in your EMR with notation that it contains U-500 so the doses are 5 times higher?
-Do you put actual drug administered in your EMR while recognizing that the patient's pump settings will not match your EMR documentation?

We are an Epic hospital system.

Any help or guidance you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Karin Terry
OSF HealthCare MSO
Peoria, IL

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