Technology in a sector of medicine such as diabetes – 4 million patients in Italy and about a million not yet diagnosed – not only facilitates prescriptions, checks and the relationship between doctor and patient.
But technology in a broad sense – in detail telemonitoring, telemedicine, mobile health, with all that they carry with them in terms of algorithms for diagnosis and treatment and monitoring apps – has even led to an improvement in parameters: a reduction half a point of glycated hemoglobin, that figure that measures the average blood sugar levels of the last three months and which for a diabetologist is more significant than blood glucose alone in terms of disease control.
Here’s what telemedicine can really do for patients
by Tiziana Moriconi
And therefore it is no coincidence that technology, which in diabetes also means meters, implantable and wearable blood glucose sensors or smart insulin pens, or screening of diabetic retinopathy thanks to artificial intelligence, has been dedicated one of the most crowded with the SID congress, the Italian Diabetes Society, with the collaboration of AMD (association of diabetic doctors), who returned to Riccione.
“M-health for example – he explained Luigi Laviola, full professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bari – allows the patient to record on his smartphone and send data relating to blood sugar, for example, to the cloud; telemonitoring allows the doctor to view these data on his computer and to interpret them; Telemedicine in the strict sense is the link between these two actors and uses the information provided by the patient and the considerations made by the doctor, to better manage the disease “.
A reflection is a must: Covid has accelerated the use of more or less sophisticated technologies to avoid losing control of patients with diabetes, a disease which, being chronic, makes constant checks with your doctor indispensable. Now, however, thanks also to the funds made available by the NRP, it is necessary to put order and implement programs that in many cases were born only thanks to the availability of doctors and their not wanting to lose the sick.
Covid and diabetes, so the lockdown has upset the management of the disease
Recently Sid, Amd and Sie have developed a practical vademecum on the management of diabetic visits remotely, indicating the essential steps (scheduling appointments, preliminary contact, recipe acquisition, tele-visit activities with secure, encrypted and able to ensure data security, reporting of the visit and certification of the performance).
And this model worked so well that in the 8 weeks of the hardest lockdown (in March), many diabetes centers managed to complete over 90% of the visits booked thanks to telemedicine. Establishing the paradox of the lockdown effect with some parameters of glyco-metabolic compensation even improved.
And therefore the future could have a hybrid way of approaching the patient with visits in the presence and remote control. It won’t be easy, especially for those without computer skills, but that’s the way to go. “Devices are needed in diabetes centers and at patients’ homes – continues Laviola – and we must aim to work on the IT skills of patients, but also of doctors. And work to integrate all this data”.
Obligatory conclusion, of course. But in a country where 62% of citizens have never heard of the electronic health record and only 12% have used it, that doesn’t seem like a milestone around the corner.
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