Dr David Brumley Explains How Technology Is a Good Fit for Diabetes Care

Telemedicine works well with diabetes because it is a condition that works with a lot of numbers and data, and physicians can look at that data remotely rather than requiring a face-to-face visit, explained David Brumley, MD, MBA, senior medical director at Tufts Health Plan.

Transcript (modified)

What does shared decision making look like to you?

Well, I think digital technology has a lot of opportunities in diabetes. I think diabetes is one of the conditions that’s really amenable to that approach because there’s a lot of data. There are glucose readings, and blood pressures and weights, and how many carbs did you eat, and how much is the bolus, and all those sorts of things. So by collecting those and transmitting those, a lot can be done in terms of advice and help to patients, just by having that information basically.

What is it about telemedicine that makes it work well with diabetes?

Well, I think with diabetes a lot of it, again, is with numbers and with data. So sitting in front of the physician and sharing those reports and having them be able to look at your glucometer readings remotely, and a lot can be done, I think, in terms of advice and changing treatment plans based on that information. So much of it doesn’t necessarily require a face-to-face visit; those are certainly important and you need to have those as well, but I think there’s a lot that can be done through telemedicine if it’s structured correctly and reimbursed in the ways we talked about to control the extrautilization that might occur.