Patients who had diabetes when admitted to Queensland hospitals experience a ‘high rate’ of shortcomings in their diabetes care, including medication errors for one in three, an audit shows.

Deficiencies in management of the patients in medical, surgical and mental health wards, high dependency units and ICU include hospital-acquired diabetic ketoacidosis in 8% and hypoglycaemia in 9%, the authors say.

They also have low rates of achieving glycaemic targets, with 59 “good diabetes days” recorded per 100 patient days on average, and worse – just 22 per 100 patient days – for patients with type 1 diabetes.

“Our bedside audit identified several deficits in inpatient diabetes management that require attention to avoid patient harm and improve care,” the authors wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia.