World Health Day 2016 - Beat Diabetes

This year the World Health Day that we celebrate on 7 April is dedicated to fight against diabetes under the slogan „Beat Diabetes“. Diabetes is one of the globally most widespread health challenges and also one of the largest European ones given that 32 million of EU citizens are living with this disease. Faced with the issue of a relatively small number of patients who respond well to therapy and live with no complications, Croatia initiated an ICT pilot project – Bring your blood glucose metre to your local Health Centre in which Ericsson Nikola Tesla is the technology partner.

This project enables GPs and patronage nurses a simplified and faster insight into the exact blood glucose measurements done outside of health facilities, which increases the efficiency of their expert advice. It is fully compatible with and uses the existing data exchange mechanisms that have already been implemented in the e/m-Health processes within the Central Healthcare Information System of the Republic of Croatia (local abbreviation: CEZIH) and the mHealth platform supplied by Ericsson Nikola Tesla (ETK). The data obtained from blood glucose metres replace often false or incomplete data from patients’ self-test diaries and it is expected that they will contribute to the decrease in complications and the reduction of costs in the local healthcare system. The Croatian Ministry of Health and the Croatian Health Insurance Fund have thus implemented an additional new ICT tool that improves efficiency, timeliness, safety and quality of medical services. 
 
The end users benefit from a simple procedure by which all they need to do is bring their blood glucose metres to their Health Centres where in a matter of minutes patronage nurses synchronize the data and enter it into the National mHealth system that has already been integrated with the Central Healthcare Information System of the Republic of Croatia. Based on that data, relevant GPs can regulate therapy and adapt their advice to patients more efficiently.
 
The added value is that experts can now for the first time compare the data obtained from glucometers with the data in the Central Healthcare Information System. This enables analysis that has potential for expansion based on needs and provides feedback with the ultimate goals of improving healthcare as well as education and quality of life of patients. The statements of all project partners confirm the benefits of this pilot.   
 
Doctor Antonija Balenović, PhD, the head of the Health Centre Zagreb-Centre, which is the largest health facility of this type in Croatia:
“For every disease, the time to diagnosis or appearance of various symptoms is crucial. The healthcare sector has recognized the benefits of e-technology such as saving of time and money and contribution to the quality of healthcare services with the resultant better health outcomes, which has led to their wider implementation. I am particularly pleased that such an innovative solution can help patients with diabetes, which is a large public health issue today. Also, I am glad that it is being implemented in cooperation with the Health Centres, the main purpose of which is community healthcare.” 
 
Miroslav Hanževački, PhD, the head of the Health Centre Zagreb-West adds:
“Whilst continuously working on improving the quality of our direct contact with citizens, we want to use modern technology that aids healthcare efficiently. Based on our experience from points of access thus far and a greater involvement of patients, we expect that we will create a large database and gain valuable experience that will improve the care of diabetes patients.” 
 
Gordana Kovačević, the President of Ericsson Nikola Tesla is proud of Ericsson Nikola Tesla’s role of the technology partner in this project: “Our company is the supplier of both Central Healthcare Information System and the mHealth platform and those systems are integrated, which is why this ICT solution fits nicely into the existing processes. More importantly, this rational upgrade is at the same time a valuable addition to our strategic activities in the e/m-health in which experts of Ericsson Nikola Tesla have been intensely engaged for 15 years and which have earned us recognitions abroad. I firmly believe that experience and feedback from this project come as an extremely valuable support to our vision of the Networked Society that brings benefits for each of its individuals and the society as a whole.” 
 
Branko Šoštarić, director of MCS Group:
„MCS Group, as a partner on this project, has been involved in the integration of our Medicus.Net solution with the uniGluko system in GPs' offices. This enables GPs to see the measurement results of blood glucose levels for each individual patient directly in the application Medicus.net. The integration of uniGluko system and Medicus.Net programme via the mHealth system allows GPs to see glucometer measurements directly and in real time. The measured values are immediately transferred into the patient's panel at their GP, which facilitates GP's prompt reaction in cases of heightened blood glucose levels. Thus improved monitoring of patients' blood glucose levels significantly contributes to the prevention of complications in diabetes patients, successful monitoring of the disease and increases their quality of life.” 
 
Siniša Drobnjak, the director of uniGLUKO:
“We are happy that we were given the opportunity to showcase many advantages of uniGluko system usage in monitoring and management of diabetes. The pilot project is a continuation of our technology development activities in cooperation with our partner Hrvatski Telekom with the aim to make uniGluko available to all in the future. We firmly believe that its application will increase the quality of life of diabetes patients whilst facilitating better diabetes cost management in the healthcare sector.”

Ericsson Nikola Tesla Company communications