Remote Glucose Monitoring of Hospitalized, Quarantined Patients With Diabetes and COVID-19

The rapid growth in diagnosed patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to national directives for hospital emergency preparedness. Sheba Medical Center, a government hospital in Israel, undertook emergency measures to expand the inpatient quarantine capacity and converted two general medical wards to isolation wards with enhanced ventilation support capabilities. Diabetes is associated with increased severity, complications, and mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (1). The care of patients with diabetes under strict isolation poses significant competing challenges of maintaining adequate quality of care achieved by multiple daily glucose measurements while minimizing risk of staff exposure, highlighting timely blood glucose management for the COVID-19 outbreak as an urgent need (2). To prevent patient-staff transmission while maintaining standard of care for hospitalized patients with diabetes, a way to monitor glucose levels remotely—from outside the designated isolated rooms—is required. …