First results about the use of a patient portal by people with diabetes in a rural area

Like several other chronic diseases the proper and effective management of diabetes requires the full involvement of patients and informal caregivers by implementing self care for personal health maintenance with treatment of diabetes and prevention of complications. Patient empowerment is a necessary pre-requisite of effective disease self-management. Self-management can help people with chronic diseases to remain in the workforce and active members of their community. Programs on chronic disease self-management teach and support patients to identify warning symptoms, measure and evaluate vital signs, decide the most suitable treatment for them, and take medications. In the context of the REACTION project, a diabetes management platform for patients in rural areas was designed and developed. In this paper we present the patient portal, the methodology adopted for the technology evaluation and our preliminary results after an extensive field test on citizens with diabetes.