in adult patients with type 2 diabetes, can tele-enabled medical services help enhance effective self-management of the condition hence improving self-care knowledge and behaviors compared to usual care?
Accordingly, telehealth entails using telecommunications technologies to allow for the delivery of health services and information aimed at supporting patient care, administrative duties, and health education. Such services reduce transportation costs and increase patient convenience in obtaining care. Access to care is an issue in areas where the physician’s ratios to a patient are not enough. Telehealth thus becomes a critical component in improving the delivery of health care and services. When patients can access medical services, they receive care that will help them manage their chronic ailments better. Type-2 diabetes was selected since it is a chronic disease and a leading cause of mortality among people in the world.
Population: For this PICOT study, the population selected are adult patients with type-2 diabetes. Notably, type-2 diabetes is a lifestyle-related condition that primarily affects obese people, people who indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking, and lack of exercise. Most people die of diabetes in the world today, and health care access remains a plausible challenge for a vast number of them. Telehealth medical services are a proposed solution to aid this target population in accessing the services required to improve and enhance the management of type-2 diabetes.
Intervention: The proposed solution for health care improvement among people with type-2 diabetes is telehealth medical services. In rural regions, health systems struggle to maintain the right number of clinical staff to serve many patients. Specialists are short of the necessary supply, and in some regions, there are not enough specialists to provide care to the patients. Telehealth entails the ability of a patient to access medical services through telecommunications technologies. By doing so, a vast number of patients with type-2 diabetes are likely to access medical care.
Comparison: the care delivery via telecommunications technologies will be compared by the usual care provided in health facilities, and, in particular, face-to-face medical care. The most common form of medical aid is provided to patients in a setting where a patient visits a medical facility and is attended by a doctor. In such a traditional setting, most patients lack access to high-quality care. In effect, chances of mortality are higher as opposed to caring issued via the advanced technologies in the 21st century.
Outcome: the expected outcome in this study is that many people with type-2 diabetes can access care. Therefore, the death rate due to diabetes-related conditions and claims of lack of access to medical care are likely to lower substantially. Thus, the chances are that telehealth medical services would lower the rates of diabetes complications significantly as opposed to the usual methods of healthcare delivery. Telehealth services could ensure that most people gain access to medical health services hence enhancing improved self-management of diabetes.
Timeframe: the estimated time for the completion of the study is about five to ten years. The study and the variables to be observed would take some time for the researchers to complete the study. The timeframe includes implementing telehealth in various rural regions and observing how the technique is useful in reducing diabetes-related deaths and complications. Notably, this time frame is effective because it will provide the researchers with adequate space to conduct and analyze the data efficiently.