A chip card for patients with diabetes

An awareness-raising E-learning approach for children living in a high diabetic population

Recent epidemiological studies have shown an increased incidence of diabetes worldwide. In United Arab Emirates (UAE), where this study on Emirati children was conducted, over 20% of the population has diabetes. With such a high incidence, there is a need to raise the awareness of the disease in order to reduce the growing number of cases and manage the disease more effectively. This research aims to identify the needs of affected children and proposes a design for an E-learning prototype that can pedagogically raise their awareness and knowledge of the disease. The use of a prototype was chosen in order to validate and refine the usability of the system, and to quickly evaluate user-interface designs without the need for an expensive working model to help refine and develop the system design. The system requirements were identified through a set of interviews with kindergarten teachers, curriculum design experts in UAE, and diabetes nutrition specialists and clinicians. The rationale behind the interview was to identify the optimal age group, describe the appropriate level of the instructional materials and activities, and propose a suitable learning approach that could facilitate and improve diabetes awareness among this age group. The prototype was evaluated by children, teachers, parents (or guardians) and nutrition specialists. We followed a three-stage software development based on a user-informed approach model for stepwise refinement that ranged from prototype to final design. The evaluation results indicate that the proposed computer-supported learning approach can generate positive learning and behavior in children while reducing the time needed to complete awareness tasks when compared to traditional methods; thus making learning more engaging and allowing children to learn at their own pace.

DIABCARD--an application of a portable medical record for persons with diabetes

The medical record is central to the management of patients. For people with a chronic disease their many records, held at different locations, often pose a problem. Electronic patient records have been discussed for a long time. This article reports on the paradigm of a portable computer-based patient record on a smart card. It describes the development of the chip card based medical information system for chronic diseases in ambulatory and hospital care. The system has been implemented, tested and evaluated. DIABCARD could demonstrate that for a speciality patient record the capacity and functionality of the existing card is sufficient. Finally, the perspectives of chip cards in health care are discussed.

Application of computers in diabetes care--a review. II. Computers for decision support and education

This paper concludes a review of the contribution of information technology to diabetes care. The role of decision support tools for planning insulin therapy using various clinical algorithms, knowledge-based approaches and interactive simulations is discussed, and certain telemedicine approaches to therapy are considered. The validation and clinical evaluation of these tools is reviewed, as is the likely impact of the routine clinical application of implantable/non-invasive blood glucose monitoring devices. Finally, the application of computers as teaching tools is considered, and ways in which such educational approaches might be applied for disseminating the benefits of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial more widely are discussed.