While essential medical personnel are on the frontlines in hospitals and many endocrinologists are left to treat patients remotely as best as they can, telemedicine technology is playing a key role in weathering the storm that is the pandemic. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) has also helped to handle the massive volume of people with diabetes who require frequent gluco analysis. Together, AI and telemedicine can form a tandem that can effectively serve the needs of the large volume of patients both during the pandemic and after.

Telemedicine has been instrumental in helping treat patients that can’t be physically present. Telemedicine can allow endocrinologists to engage patients directly and provide direct communication on blood glucose analysis, as well as advice on dietary habits and other lifestyle requirements—almost as if the physician and patient were actually sitting together in the doctor's office. Beyond the direct care of monitoring blood glucose levels and insulin delivery advice, telemedicine can also help provide a measure of calm to people with diabetes during the pandemic, a critical element in the personal care process.


These measures have already been in the works for some time, and with the onset of the pandemic, they were finally implemented. Take Iowa, for example, where state regulations initially did not require healthcare insurers to pay for telehealth consultations and doctors could only assess patients remotely with video, not just audio. But the winds of change settled in and legislators finally made the necessary amendments to adapt to the changing social reality, where clinics and hospitals are now using telemedicine and telehealth regularly.

For the last two years, telehealth has also been in the sights of the CDC as a means to support people with diabetes living in remote areas who need the attention of a specialist who is not within reasonable reach. Dr. Timothy Xu et al. noted in their study: "Our findings suggest that telemedicine is a safe method of delivering type 1 diabetes care to rural patients. Telehealth patients in our study experienced improvements overall in diabetes outcomes"

On the case analysis side of treatment, AI has made great strides in its utilization in medicine in the last 20 to 30 years. With regard to diabetes treatment, AI has transformed the blood glucose and insulin management analysis process into one that is a lot faster. It has also shown the ability to provide condensed insights and accurate suggestions on insulin delivery－endeavours that are very time consuming without such a tool.

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