Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction

COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly changed the landscape of diabetes care to quickly adapt to continue providing optimal care to patients with diabetes in an efficient and effective manner

Methods

We describe a retrospective assessment of patients with diabetes, with and without COVID-19 infection, during the lockdown period March 2020 to February 2021 managed through a dedicated comprehensive dedicated telehealth platform. The virtual health applications comprised of telephone consultations and video telehealth consultations

Results

The total patients who were managed by teleconsultation were 765 (30 T1DM), (440 males). 250 patients were COVID-19 with type 2 diabetes, and 15 patients were type 1 diabetes. The mean age (years) was 60 (±14, minimum 10, maximum 88, 95% CI 58 to 62). There were 49% (375/765) patients with age less than 60 years. The mean number of teleconsultations per patient were 1.5 (±0.97, minimum 1, maximum 6, 95% CI 1.4 to 1.7). There were 235 patients who sought at least 1 repeat virtual consultation, of which 145 had two virtual consultations. The mean number of virtual consultations were comparable in patients with (1.6±0.94, 95% CI 1.3 to 1.8) or without COVID-19 (1.4±0.97, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.6), P = 0.41 ns. The mean age was comparable in patients with (58±15.5, 95% CI 54.47 to 63.04) or without COVID-19 (60.45±12.81, 95% CI 57.91 to 62.9), P = 0.47 ns. The mean number of virtual consultations were comparable in elderly >60 years (1.4±0.78, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.5) and in age group <60 years (1.6±1.1, 95% CI 1.3 to 1.8), P = 0.22 ns. The mean number of virtual consultations were similar in males (1.4±0.77, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.5) and in females (1.6±1.1, 95% CI 1.3 to 1.9), P = 0.11 ns.

Conclusion

Digital – virtual diabetes clinic has a potential to provide efficient method of consultative service. Virtual electronic consultation mitigated the lockdown induced disruption in diabetes care activities and appears to be a reliable approach. Beyond the pandemic, we suggest that annually per patient, two virtual consultations would complement the two in person consultations, that would suffice to maintain the continuity of care and deliver optimal diabetes care