Global Survey Sees Value of Telehealth in Chronic Care Management

A global survey of people living with type 1 diabetes has found that three-quarters who moved to a telehealth platform during the coronavirus pandemic would stay on the platform once the emergency has passed.

The information, presented this week at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), points to the value of connected health platforms in maintaining care management at a time when in-person doctor’s visits are curtailed. It could also reinforce the efforts of providers to reconnect with chronic care patients who have avoided office visits or checkups during the pandemic and re-establish care routines.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland and supported by Novo Nordisk, was recently featured in the journal Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism.

“The results … demonstrate that a large number of people living with type 1 diabetes have rapidly adopted telemedicine or plan to in the near future and that this has generally been perceived positively,” the researchers concluded in the study.

“Interestingly, age and level of education do not appear to influence peoples’ perceptions of telemedicine so far, whereas poor glucose control seems to negatively affect the perception on usefulness of telemedicine, particularly in males,” they added. “Beyond the pandemic, telemedicine may offer an alternative means to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness of care for people with diabetes.”

According to the study of some 7,477 people in 89 countries, roughly 30 percent said the pandemic had affected their access to in-person care, and about 28 percent said they’d move to a virtual care platform to meet with their care providers. Of that number, 86 percent found those visits useful and 75 percent said they plan to continue using telehealth.

Just as important, patients with a positive perception of telehealth also exhibited positive glucose control, a key factor to improved care management and clinical outcomes.

The study provides evidence that telehealth, hurriedly embraced by care providers during the pandemic, can be an important avenue of care management for patients who need continuous contact with their doctors and are either unable or unwilling to schedule in-person appointments.

“Before the pandemic, it was thought that telemedicine approaches would only become established if long‐term studies were able to demonstrate significant time and cost savings,” the researchers noted in their study. “Commonly reported issues included increased clinician workload, data safety concerns and technical issues with equipment. However, the pandemic has led to fast and widespread adoption of telemedicine, with the need for patient care overruling previous reservations.”

“Type 1 diabetes may be particularly well suited to telemedicine, as consultations are mostly based around a review of glucose data and conversations about therapy,” they added. “The increasing use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), insulin pumps and smart insulin pens, alongside cloud/screen‐based data sharing and greater access to webcams, can make this particularly useful, as both the healthcare provider and patient can simultaneously view the data without being together physically. Virtual visits also avoid the costs, time and inconveniences of travel, which can be especially useful for people who live far from their healthcare providers or who have mobility issues that make in‐person appointments difficult.”

That said, the study could provide proof to care providers that patients with chronic care needs are willing to use telehealth. This could lead to more telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs in the future as COVID-19 concerns linger and providers try to find a balance between virtual and in-person care.