When people with diabetes use miscoded blood glucose meters to determine their blood sugar level and how much insulin to take, errors often result that can lead to short and long-term health problems.

Recently, researchers enrolled 116 people with diabetes at three major clinical centers. After fasting (not eating for 8 hours), they drank a sugary liquid; then, three times during the following 2 hours, investigators tested their finger-stick blood sample using five different popular glucose meters. Some meters that required coding be done by hand were correctly coded; some were purposely miscoded; and some were autocoded — meaning the correct code was automatically set when a test strip was inserted. When researchers looked at the results, they found that the probability of dosing errors was low with either the meters correctly coded by hand or the autocoded meters.

Earlier research has shown that many people with diabetes fail to use their meters correctly or maintain them properly. The bottom line, say researchers, is that patients should be instructed by their healthcare provider in how to correctly code their meters, or they should use newer, autocoded meters. Then review with your healthcare team how you are using your meter to make sure you are doing it correctly.