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 .
Type 2 diabetes patients educated by other patients perform at least as well as patients trained by professionals.
BACKGROUND Diabetes education can improve the quality of care of people with diabetes , but many organizations are not equipped to manage its implementation . Involving people with diabetes in the education process can overcome the problem . Thus , we compared clinical , metabolic and psychological outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes 1 year after attending a structured diabetes education programme implemented by professional educators versus the same programme implemented by trained peers with diabetes  that also provided ongoing peer support . METHODS People with type 2 diabetes ( 25 - 75 years ) were r and omly assigned to attend a 4-week structured diabetes education course delivered by professional educators ( control ) or previously trained peers ( peer ) . Peers also received continuing psychological support , including examples on how to apply diabetes knowledge in daily life via weekly peer cellular phone calls and bimonthly face-to-face interviews in small groups ( ten patients ) , using a structured question naire related to the patient 's clinical , metabolic and psychological progress . Identical outcome data from both groups were used for follow-up . RESULTS Both groups had a comparable positive effect on clinical , metabolic and psychological indicators immediately following the programme . Over the following year , peer-educated subjects had lower A(1C ) and systolic blood pressure and showed higher adherence to physical activity and better control of hypoglycaemic episodes . CONCLUSION The non-inferiority of the peer outcomes and the mentioned improvements in this group suggest that volunteer trained peer educators and ongoing support can be successful . This approach provides an effective alternative method of education , especially in areas with limited availability of professionals and economic re sources
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 .