Real Outcomes: Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine
CME Provider: Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine
Location: Stony Brook, New York
Staff Spotlight: Dorothy S. Lane, MD, MPH, Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education
“Accredited CME helps bring the right people together around a shared goal.”
Improving Healthcare Quality
At Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine, the accredited CME team helped strengthen inpatient diabetes care by bringing clinicians and quality improvement partners together around a shared patient safety goal. The Stony Brook University Hospital cares for about 7,000 patients with diabetes each year, and diabetes—when it appears as a secondary diagnosis—can contribute to longer hospital stays, higher readmission rates, and increased morbidity and mortality.
Stronger Diabetes Care Across Departments
Stony Brook saw an opportunity to reduce severe hypoglycemia, a form of dangerously low blood sugar that can cause confusion, loss of consciousness, and other serious complications among hospital inpatients with diabetes.
To support that goal, the CME office collaborated with the Stony Brook Diabetes Center and the Stony Brook University Hospital Quality Improvement Department.
“Accredited CME helps bring the right people together around a shared goal,” said Dorothy S. Lane, MD, MPH, Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education.
Together, they brought diabetes-focused RSS activities to departments across Stony Brook, including anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, and family and community medicine. They worked to reduce severe hypoglycemia by aligning electronic ordering, glucose monitoring, and point-of-care practices with the American Diabetes Association’s Standards of Care in Diabetes. A diabetes tracking dashboard also helped teams monitor current hospitalized patients and quickly identify cases needing attention.
Improved Outcomes in Diabetes Care
During the period of collaboration, Stony Brook saw measurable improvements:
- Severe hypoglycemia events among inpatients with diabetes declined from 2.10% in April 2021 to 1.36% in July 2023—a 35% relative improvement.
- HbA1c testing among adult inpatients with diabetes increased from 85% to 97.1% during a similar period.
- 30-day readmission rates for adults with diabetes declined from 14.2% in April 2021 to 13.6% in April 2023.
The increased HbA1c testing gave clinicians more information about patients’ longer-term glucose control, supporting more informed diabetes care during hospitalization. Together, those gains show how accredited CME, practical tools, and quality data can work together to support better diabetes care.
