Telemedicine had no convincing effect on quality of life , mortality or hypoglycemia .
INTERPRETATION : Compared with usual care , the addition of telemedicine , especially systems that allowed medication adjustments with or without text messaging or a Web portal , improved HbA1C but not other clinical ly relevant outcomes among patients with diabetes
BACKGROUND : Telemedicine , the use of telecommunications to deliver health services , expertise and information , is a promising but unproven tool for improving the quality of  diabetes care  .
We summarized the effectiveness of different methods of telemedicine for the management of diabetes compared with usual care .
Effect of telephone follow-up on adherence to a diabetes therapeutic regimen.
AIM To determine whether a nurse telephone follow-up service could improve the level of adherence to a diabetes therapeutic regimen for patients with type 2 diabetes . METHODS A total of 61 patients attended a 3 day diabetes self-care program at the Iranian Diabetes Society . They were r and omly assigned to one of the experimental or control groups . A telephone follow-up program was applied to the experimental group for 3 months , twice per week for the first month and weekly for the second and third months . The data - collection instruments included a data sheet to record the glycosylated hemoglobin ( HbA1c ) level and a question naire . The data were collected at baseline and after 12 weeks . RESULTS There were significant differences between the control and the experimental groups in their adherence to a diabetic diet , exercise , foot care , blood glucose monitoring , and medication-taking . Also , the HbA1c levels differed significantly between the two groups after 3 months . CONCLUSION A nurse-led telephone follow-up was effective in enhancing the level of adherence to a diabetes therapeutic regimen , such that the HbA1c level decreased
Telemedicine had no convincing effect on quality of life , mortality or hypoglycemia .
INTERPRETATION : Compared with usual care , the addition of telemedicine , especially systems that allowed medication adjustments with or without text messaging or a Web portal , improved HbA1C but not other clinical ly relevant outcomes among patients with diabetes
BACKGROUND : Telemedicine , the use of telecommunications to deliver health services , expertise and information , is a promising but unproven tool for improving the quality of  diabetes care  .
We summarized the effectiveness of different methods of telemedicine for the management of diabetes compared with usual care .