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Santosh Krishna

Publications and source records attributed to Santosh Krishna.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Evaluation of a Diabetes Education Call Center intervention.

Patients require education and information as they engage in self-help, self-care, and disease management activities. The purpose of this study was to determine how effective voice technologies are in diabetes patient education. A pretest-posttest study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of prerecorded educational messages delivered via the telephone to participants with diabetes. The intervention consisted of 24 four-minute messages on the topics of knowledge and prevention, glucose level, diet and activity, and management and coping. Eighteen persons with diabetes participated in the pretest-posttest trial. A total of 324 educational messages were listened to over a 12-week intervention period. The pretest-posttest trial demonstrated that a brief telephone-based diabetes education intervention can have a significant impact on increasing frequency of checking blood for glucose (p = 0.017), improving general diabetes knowledge (p = 0.048), and improving insulin-specific knowledge (p = 0.020). Automated educational interventions should be based on scientifically sound evidence and can be effectively delivered by telephone. Automated telephone-based diabetes education may be used alone or as a supplement to existing diabetes education. Automated education is a viable solution when healthcare organizations and regions that as a result of a lack of human and financial resources cannot afford a diabetes educator.

Adult↗

Web and computer telephone-based diabetes education: lessons learnt from the development and use of a call center.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that causes a great deal of morbidity and mortality and poor quality of life for millions of people. Continuing care and patient education help maintain a good control of the disease and prevent complications. Since current available resources are limited to providing such an education during clinic or physician visits only, alternative ways to educate people about diabetes need to be identified. In this article we discuss the implementation of an automated diabetes education call center, we define the evaluation procedures we adopted, we summarize general guidelines for the implementation of the entire system based on our experience, and we present preliminary results about the use of the call center. We believe our system is providing "active health" since we deliver educational messages to patients at regular intervals and at the time of their choice without waiting for their actions.

Diabetes Mellitus↗

Acceptance of diabetes education via the telephone.

Patients require education and information as they engage in self-help, self-care, and disease management activities. The objective of this study was to explore the acceptance of voice technologies in diabetes patient education. Eighteen participants listened to a total of 324 diabetes educational messages and were provided the opportunity to rate the usefulness of each message. This study demonstrated that brief telephone-based education can be acceptable and useful.

Diabetes Mellitus↗

Computerized knowledge management in diabetes care.

INTRODUCTION: Many scientific achievements become part of usual diabetes care only after long delays. The purpose of this article is to identify the impact of automated information interventions on diabetes care and patient outcomes and to enable this knowledge to be incorporated into diabetes care practice. METHODS: We conducted systematic electronic and manual searches and identified reports of randomized clinical trials of computer-assisted interventions in diabetes care. Studies were grouped into 3 categories: computerized prompting of diabetes care, utilization of home glucose records in computer-assisted insulin dose adjustment, and computer-assisted diabetes patient education. RESULTS: Among 40 eligible studies, glycated hemoglobin and blood glucose levels were significantly improved in 7 and 6 trials, respectively. Significantly improved guideline compliance was reported in 6 of 8 computerized prompting studies. Three of 4 pocket-sized insulin dosage computers reduced hypoglycemic events and insulin doses. Metaanalysis of studies using home glucose records in insulin dose adjustment documented a mean decrease in glycated hemoglobin of.14 mmol/L (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.11-0.16) and a decrease in blood glucose of.33 mmol/L (95% CI, 0.28-0.39). Several computerized educational programs improved diet and metabolic indicators. DISCUSSION: Computerized knowledge management is becoming a vital component of quality diabetes care. Prompting follow-up procedures, computerized insulin therapy adjustment using home glucose records, remote feedback, and counseling have documented benefits in improving diabetes-related outcomes.

Blood Glucose Self-Monitoring↗

From SARS to systems: developing advanced knowledge management for public health.

Historically, public health has been at the forefront of data processing applications but it is lagging behind other areas of health care in the application of advanced interconnected and mobile information technologies. Ready to use technologies are lacking not only for the management of emerging infections or bio-terrorism but also for the coordination of prevention and chronic care initiatives. Advanced information and knowledge management for community health should expedite the transfer of research evidence to practice and provide essential logistical support for action. We need to find ways to integrate new scientific knowledge into our environment in order to expedite the translation of research to practice.

Decision Support Techniques↗

Internet-enabled interactive multimedia asthma education program: a randomized trial.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether health outcomes of children who have asthma can be improved through the use of an Internet-enabled interactive multimedia asthma education program. METHODS: Two hundred twenty-eight children with asthma visiting a pediatric pulmonary clinic were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. Children and caregivers in both groups received traditional patient education based on the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program. Intervention group participants received additional self-management education through the Interactive Multimedia Program for Asthma Control and Tracking. Pediatric Asthma Care Knowledge Survey, Pediatric Asthma Caregiver's Quality of Life Questionnaire, asthma symptom history, spirometry, and health services utilization data were collected at the initial visit and at 3 and 12 months. RESULTS: Interactive Multimedia Program for Asthma Control and Tracking significantly increased asthma knowledge of children and caregivers, decreased asthma symptom days (81 vs 51 per year), and decreased number of emergency department visits (1.93 vs 0.62 per year) among the intervention group participants. The intervention group children were also using a significantly lower average daily dose of inhaled corticosteroids (434 vs 754 micro g [beclomethasone equivalents]) at visit 3. Asthma knowledge of all 7- to 17-year-old children correlated with fewer urgent physician visits (r = 0.37) and less frequent use of quick-relief medicines (r = 0.30). CONCLUSIONS: Supplementing conventional asthma care with interactive multimedia education can significantly improve asthma knowledge and reduce the burden of childhood asthma.

Adolescent↗

WEB-WAP based telecare.

We have developed two telecare applications based on mobile telephony (WAP) and WEB. The first can be used to request Basic Life Support (BLS) guidelines any time by using a WAP device and to teach people and non-professionals involved in health care emergency situations. The second is a WEB-WAP based tool for medical data retrieval and at-home health care monitoring of chronically ill patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) or diabetes. Medical education content related to these diseases is available on the WEB and on the WAP device. The WAP application uses the features found in the last generation of mobile phones such as better multimedia information presentations, better interactivity capabilities, and enhanced ease of use. Based on these two applications, a promising platform is offered for developing applications in health care, home care, medical monitoring and health education ensuring continuity of care. In the paper we present the preliminary results of a pilot test at Thessaloniki University (Greece) where the WEB-WAP based tool is used to monitor patients with diabetes or CHF.

Chronic Disease↗