Abstract
The aim of the work was to develop and to evaluate the clinical efficiency of a mobile telecare system implementing teleconsultations based on the continuous transmission of patient-collected data directly to the physician and to the clinic.
The developed TeleMed system consists of the patients' and the diabetologist's mobile units, the diabetologist's clinic and home workstations and the clinical server. The evaluation of the system was performed on a group of 13 newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic patients, during a single-arm study with 3-days run-in period, including a one-day intensive educational program, and 3-week study period, when the intensive insulin treatment was conducted without visits of patients to the clinic. The MBG dropped from 7.2 ± 1.7 mmol/L before the study to 6.1 ± 1.0 mmol/L in the third week of the study (P = 0.02) and the J-index from 30.2±19.2 to 19.7±7.7 (P = 0.04). Hemoglobin A1c decreased from 11.8 ± 3.3% to 8.6 ± 1.2% (P = 0.0002) in one month. The total daily insulin dose declined from 39.9 ± 8.5 U to 20.0 ± 9.6 U (P = 0.000006). The number of hypoglycemia episodes per patient per day decreased by 66% (P = 0.08) and the number of hyperglycemia episodes was reduced by 47% (P < 0.0001).
The TeleMed facilitates not only efficient realization of the intensive insulin treatment but also successful remote patient training and education. No formal patient satisfaction study was done. However, some of the findings indicate that the application of the developed system increases patient self-confidence and quality of life. (Int J Artif Organs 2006; 29: 1074–81)
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