Loading...
Glucagon remains an important treatment for severe hypoglycemia and can be prescribed to patients taking insulin or oral hypoglycemic medications for administration by friends or family. However, glucagon is underprescribed: only 0.2% of Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes were prescribed the medication in 2014. Thus, it often falls to emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to administer glucagon. Despite this, not all emergency medical technicians (EMTs) are allowed to administer it — most states only allow EMT-paramedics to do so.
To further understand state variations in glucagon administration protocols and whether patients prescribed glucagon have fewer emergency department (ED) visits for hypoglycemia, researchers contacted state …