ALERTS, NOTIFICATIONS, REMINDERS: TELEMEDICINE SOLUTION NOT TO BURDEN BUT TO SUPPORT PATIENTS WITH DIABETES
Abstract
Background and Aims: Having diabetes means everyday and continuous control of patients' health conditions. Although new technologies provide numerous tools that can help in self-management and patients are initially willing to use such, the adherence decreases over time. Reasons can be low motivation, time consumption, and inability of an adequate and timely reaction to change of the monitored parameters. Regarding the approach applied in the system presented, our aim is to find the best possible combination of reminders and alerts and implement these processes as fully automatic. Method: Building on our system that collects and stores data in a cloud-based solution, data from several devices and apps for diabetes telemonitoring, we have implemented alerts, notifications, and reminders for helping the patients to manage their activities, to motivate them, and to call their attention to situations in which they make mistakes frequently and which might not be discovered on time. Results: Our supervision system consists of: (1) a security system that monitors blood glucose level via the Nightscout application and generates alarms for critically low and high values under defined conditions; (2) a monitoring server system that sends e-mail notifications about patients' physical activity; (3) a reminder system for patients to check post-meal glycoses via Pebble smartwatch; and (4) social websites and e-mail support to increase patients' awareness and motivation. The system has been already tested by diabetic patients. Conclusion: Diabetes telemedicine solution that provides alerts and reminders may improve motivation in patients' self-management, and therefore, the improvements of the illness.