JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic burden, which emerges worldwide. Telemetric interventions have attracted great interest, and may provide new therapeutic approaches for improving type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) care effectively.

Objective:

To our knowledge, this is the first systematic meta-review, which analyzes clinical effectiveness of telemetric interventions on glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) specifically and T2DM management in general.

Methods:

A systematic literature search in PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science Core Collection and EMBASE databases, from January 2008 to April 2020, was performed. In total, n=73 Randomized Controlled Trials, n=10 systematic reviews/meta-analyzes, n=9 qualitative, n=2 cohort, n=2 non-randomized controlled, n=2 observational and n=1 non-controlled intervention studies addressing HbA1c, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, body mass index, diabetes-related and health-related quality of life, cost-effectiveness, time savings, and clinical effectiveness of telemetric interventions were analyzed.

Results:

Overall, n=1647 citations were identified. Finally, n=99 eligible publications (n=15,939 patients, n=82,436 patient cases) were included. Telemetric interventions were categorized according communication channels to health care providers: “real-time video interventions” (1), “real-time audio interventions” (2), “asynchronous interventions” (3), and “combined interventions” (4). To analyze changes in HbA1c, suitable RCTs were pooled, the average was determined. In summary, telemetric interventions do clearly improve HbA1c specifically and T2DM management in general. A HbA1c decrease of -1.15% (95% CI: -1.84 to -0.45) yielding 6.95% (±0.495) was analyzed by using 6-month “real-time video interventions”.

Conclusions:

Telemetric interventions clearly improve HbA1c values in a short- and long-term way, and T2DM management effectively. More studies need to be done more in detail. Clinical Trial: Not applicable.