Telemedicine for the Clinical Management of Diabetes; Implications and Considerations After COVID-19 Experience

Abstract

Telemedicine is a clinical approach that was seldom used in the day-to-day practice, if not only in certain settings, before the COVID-19 pandemic. As stated by the WHO, telemedicine is: the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies (ICT) for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, …. Telemedicine has actually represented the most useful and employed tool to maintain contacts between patients and physicians during the period of physical distance imposed by the pandemic, especially during the lockdown. Diabetes in particular, a chronic disease that often needs frequent confronting between patient and health professionals has taken advantage of the telehealth approach. Nowadays, technological tools are more and more widely used for the management of diabetes. In this review results obtained by telemendicine application in type 1 and type 2 diabetic individuals during COVID-19 are revised, and future perspectives for telemedicine use to manage diabetes are discussed.

Changing Patterns of Antihyperglycaemic Treatment among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in Hungary between 2015 and 2020—Nationwide Data from a Register-Based Analysis

“…As a consequence, the access to health care providers became difficult and limited. Although the widespread increase of telemedicine slowly counterbalanced this drawback in diabetes management [ 18 ], the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on treatment patterns should be considered as an important factor affecting therapeutic practice in patients withT2DM.…”

The metabolic control and laboratory evaluation in patients with type 2 diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of telemedicine: a single-center experience

“…The management of DM usually requires periodic face-to-face interactions with the healthcare providers, but during the COVID-19 pandemic alternative technology-based methods and strategies have been implemented, in order to support patients and provide continued healthcare services [16]. Telehealth turned out to be crucial for delivery of these services to DM patients and was widely used throughout the pandemic [17]. It was provided through videoconferences or telephone calls, if the necessary technologies were not available.…”

The Impact of Telemedicine-Augmented Integrated Personalized Diabetes Management on Glycemic Control in Adults With Diabetes Mellitus During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Study

“…Telemedicine has proven to be useful and effective for providing care to people with diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic. 1 , 2 However, the impact varies by each nation and type of diabetes. 3 , 4 A previous systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials reported that telemedicine was superior to usual care in improving HbA1c levels in adults with T2D.…”