Remote insulin titrations leading to enhanced efficiency, capacity and patient care |Roche Diabetes Care UK & Ireland

Challenge: Remotely titrate insulin with confidence without reliable blood glucose data

Before using the RocheDiabetes Care Platform, appointments were often being postponed or missed. However, since enabling remote insulin titrations, a Diabetes Specialist Nurse working at this specialist service feels that efficiency and capacity have increased.

Follow-up telephone calls would be scheduled 4-6 weeks after a clinic appointment; these would often be missed, or be ineffective if patients didn’t have their blood glucose readings to hand. In some cases, healthcare professionals working in the specialist service had low confidence in the patient-reported blood glucose data, and felt unable to rely on it to titrate insulin.

This often resulted in overly cautious insulin titration advice, or titrations being left for when patients attended clinic. This delay in achieving optimal diabetes management meant that patients stayed in the service for longer - the average time taken for a patient to be discharged was estimated to be 6-12 months.

Results: 6 months after introducing the RocheDiabetes Care Platform

After introducing the RocheDiabetes Care Platform into the clinic, the diabetes specialist nurse has managed to make improvements in remote insulin titration. As a result, improved clinic efficiency and patient prioritisation were reported within just six months. Remote insulin titrations can now be carried out with confidence, and the nurse feels that the improved efficiency of the clinic has resulted in more effective diabetes management for their patients, reducing the time taken to discharge patients from the service.

Data is automatically transferred from patients’ blood glucose monitoring device to the RocheDiabetes Care Platform in near real-time. This reduces the potential of manual logging errors and has enabled healthcare professionals at the specialist service to confidently titrate insulin remotely, providing specific advice to patients when required.

The nurse can now prioritise patients in need of titration, and contact these patients by telephone every 2 weeks, rather than every 4-6 weeks. If the patient does not answer the phone, advice is still provided by leaving a voice message or sending a message using the platform’s chat function.

The nurse was able to discharge one patient from the specialist diabetes service in the South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust after just 3 months, compared with the 6-12 months that was the norm before the RocheDiabetes Care Platform was implemented. After a clinic appointment to initiate treatment, the near real-time data in the platform meant the patient’s insulin was able to be titrated remotely. By the time the patient had their second clinic appointment, their blood glucose was 99% in range, and with their HbA1c in range, they were discharged back to GP care.

It is also reported that clinic capacity has been increased, due to data analysis being simpler with interactive dashboards, graphs and reports. The nurse is able to conduct clinic appointments now in 25 minutes rather than 30, allowing one extra patient to be seen in each clinic per day, helping to meet the high demand on the service.

Being able to consistently view patient’s live data has allowed the nurse and her colleagues at the specialist diabetes service to prioritise patients with greater needs, ensuring the valuable appointment time is utilised in the most effective way possible.

Remote insulin titrations leading to enhanced efficiency, capacity and patient care

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Challenge: Remotely titrate insulin with confidence without reliable blood glucose data

“[Prior to using the RocheDiabetes Care Platform] we relied on patients providing us with accurate information”

Results: 6 months after introducing the RocheDiabetes Care Platform

“Our team [now has] a lot more confidence to titrate insulin because the data are real-time and accurate”

“If you want to do remote diabetes assessments then the RocheDiabetes Care Platform is the way forward”

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