Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research

COVID-19 has changed healthcare delivery, requiring less face-to-face interactions, and increasing the use telehealth for clinical care. High-risk medication use is essential for certain disease states, such as diabetes mellitus, and transitions of care can be an especially hazardous time for those new to diabetes medications. Interestingly, more patients with and without COVID-19 are developing diabetes, and are requiring in depth knowledge and education transfer, as they transition from the inpatient to outpatient setting. We have developed the Diabetes Discharge Toolkit for testing, an integrated software (website/app/print) and hardware (3-D printed kit) system with diabetes survival skills education content, designed to systematically improve the transition from in-patient to outpatient DM care. We now will plan to adapt the toolkit for the COVID-19 era to create a “telehealth DM discharge toolkit” for self-directed training and self-learning for DM patients transitioning from hospital to home, utilizing novel user learning design methods. We will additionally integrate the “telehealth DM discharge toolkit” into the new clinical setting for those with and without COVID-19, but have diabetes requiring new and/or additional diabetes medications. This study will help directly improve clinical care, through the input of all stakeholders in transitional care management, for our sickest cohort of patients.