Telematic support in intensive insulin treatment. Frequency of the data transfer

Diabetes is one of the most socially important and dramatically growing chronic diseases, affecting especially highly developed countries. Recent applications of modern technologies such as telemedicine, telecare or e-health are aimed at the optimization of the treatment of diabetic patients. It is expected that usage of the tele-technologies in diabetes treatment will increase frequency of contacts between patients and the diabetelologist, increase reliability of the data collected and reported by patients, increase patient's comfort of living and decrease overall costs of hospitalization. Another very important aim of telematic support refers to efficient “continuous” education of the patients due to implementation of teleconsultation services. Today, based on available technologies, it is no problem to design and develop a data transfer system that in semi- or fully automatic way will connect health care providers with patients. The structure of such a tele-health systems, the technology being used and the mode of the data transmission can be adjusted to best match the needs of different groups of patient in terms of their initial and target metabolic control, mobility, assumed duration of the application of the system etc. The most of the existing tele-health systems used till now in diabetes treatment are designed for long-term applications with data transfer realized once during a period of time (day/week/month) established by a physician. However, there is also another solution, in which transmission of the data is performed throughout the day and the system is used for the short-term interventions. Our paper contains details related to the both above mentioned type of systems, their clinical verification as well as their acceptance by patients and physicians.