Telemedicine for the Clinical Management of Diabetes; Implications and Considerations After COVID-19 Experience

Telemedicine is a clinical approach that was seldom used in the day-to-day practice, if not only in certain settings, before the COVID-19 pandemic. As stated by the WHO, telemedicine is: the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies (ICT) for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, …. Telemedicine has actually represented the most useful and employed tool to maintain contacts between patients and physicians during the period of physical distance imposed by the pandemic, especially during the lockdown. Diabetes in particular, a chronic disease that often needs frequent confronting between patient and health professionals has taken advantage of the telehealth approach. Nowadays, technological tools are more and more widely used for the management of diabetes. In this review results obtained by telemendicine application in type 1 and type 2 diabetic individuals during COVID-19 are revised, and future perspectives for telemedicine use to manage diabetes are discussed.