This study was carried out at the General Hospital of Zone Nº 14 of the IMSS in Jalisco, Mexico, with the goal of designing standardized criteria to handle hospitalized diabetes patients, as a strategy for quality assurance, through the participation of a panel of experts in internal medicine from the hospital. Participation by the attending physician in designing criteria generates a sense of belonging in the staff and makes adherence and application easier. The suggested criteria are subject to further improvement and are not intended for universal application, but to the extent that they have been useful in patient care they have far surpassed the authors' expectations when the goals of this research were originally established.