A recent study has shown that telemedicine consultations in population living with type 1 diabetes have a similar impact to traditional consultations.
The results of the study were presented by the Diabetes Group of the Andalusian Society of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition.
The study published in 2020 in Diabetes Care, evaluated the efficacy of implementing a telemedicine platform for the care of patients living with type 1 diabetes (T1D), the evaluation included laboratory samples looking for glycosylated hemoglobin levels below 8.
The study involved the participation of 330 T1D patients, of whom 163 were attended conventionally in face-to-face consultations and 167 underwent a telemedicine consultation. The teleconsultation included the downloading of patient data by the physician, insulin adjustment and communication via text messages.
The study included the participation of patients from 9 different hospitals in Andalusia, thus generalizing the results to the entire Andalusian region. The researchers involved explained that there was a positive response of satisfaction in 85-90% of the participants. However, the improvements contemplated consist in the speed of data download, which could be simple by using flash glucose monitoring systems that allow glycemic data to be downloaded to the cloud automatically.
This proposal opens the way to new studies using other types of blood glucose measurements, and the development of more complete or specialized telemedicine platforms for T1D.
