Evaluating Clinical Outcomes of Telehealth as Adjunct to In-Person Care for Older Adults with Diabetes: A Systematic Review of Research Studies.

Abstract

The aim was to compare clinical outcomes for older adults with diabetes who received telehealth (TH) as an adjunct to in-person care (F2F) compared with those who received in-person only care (F2F). Systematic literature search was performed using the following databases: Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane, CINAHL, and ClinicalTrials.gov to include studies involving TH care for older adults with diabetes. Two authors independently reviewed the full text of shortlisted articles. A total of four studies that met the eligibility criteria were included. One study showed slight worsening in glycemic control in the TH group, but the remaining three showed improvement or no difference between the two groups. This review shows that TH modality, when utilized as an adjunct to F2F care, has comparability to F2F alone, with similar or better glycemic control for older adults with type II diabetes, especially those residing in rural communities, those older than age 75, and those with multiple comorbidities who had multiple clinical encounters.