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App helps patients lower HbA1c levels

Sean Duffy

An app that functioned as an electronic health record and clinical decision support tool assisted community health workers in helping patients with diabetes lower HbA1c levels in Guatemala, according to findings recently published in Annals of Family Medicine.

Certain U.S. populations would likely benefit from similar technology, according to Sean Duffy, MD, of the department of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

“A person living below the [U.S.] federal poverty line is approximately twice as likely to develop diabetes as a high-income wealthy individual. At the same time, low-income patients are more than twice as likely as high-income wealthy patients to die from complications related to diabetes,” he told Healio Primary Care.

Researchers trained community health workers on how to use the app and deliver basic diabetes care. Then the community health workers checked for diabetes control, treatment tolerability and effectiveness, presence of complications and diabetes self-care.

 

An app that functioned as an electronic health record and clinical decision support tool assisted community health workers in helping patients with diabetes lower HbA1c levels in Guatemala, according to findings recently published in Annals of Family Medicine.

Source:Adobe

Duffy and colleagues found that vs. baseline values, mean HbA1c levels decreased by 1.5% at 3 months (n = 46, P = 0.01) and 1.6% at 6 months (n = 21, P = 0.02). In addition, 34.8% of patients followed for 3 months met treatment goals, an increase from 13% of patients.

Duffy described parts of the app that are transferable to the United States.

“A program using nurses instead of community health workers could function similarly to our model. Nurses in the U.S. frequently use protocols for medication titration and other clinical tasks, through which the authority to direct patient treatment is delegated to them by a physician. Nurses could use our application in a similar fashion. Nurses often use static flow-charts and other cognitive aids to assist them in carrying out delegation protocols,” he explained.

“Our application has the advantage of automatically generating recommendations based on patient data, which decreases cognitive load and could allow for more complicated protocols while also reducing the risk of human error,” Duffy continued. – by Janel Miller

Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.