Management of patients with diabetes through information technology: tools for monitoring and control of the patients' metabolic behavior.

Background: The junction of telemedicine home monitoring with multifaceted disease management programs seems nowadays a promising direction to combine the need for an intensive approach to deal with diabetes and the pressure to contain the costs of the interventions. Several projects in the European Union and the United States are implementing information technology-based services for diabetes management using a comprehensive approach. Within these systems, the role of tools for data analysis and automatic reminder generation seems crucial to deal with the information overload that may result from large home monitoring programs.

Design, methods, and evaluation directions of a multi-access service for the management of diabetes mellitus patients.

Recent advances in information and communication technology allow the design and testing of new models of diabetes management, which are able to provide assistance to patients regardless of their distance from the health care providers. The M2DM project, funded by the European Commission, has the specific aim to investigate the potential of novel telemedicine services in diabetes management. A multi-access system based on the integration of Web access, telephone access through interactive voice response systems, and the use of palmtops and smart modems for data downloading has been implemented.