Perceptions of a comprehensive telehealth intervention in patients with persistently poor type 2 diabetes control.
Date
2025-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Citation Stats
Attention Stats
Abstract
Introduction
To understand participant perspectives on an effective, practical, comprehensive telehealth intervention for persistently poorly controlled diabetes mellitus and examine how its components contributed to improved outcomes, with the goal of informing broader telehealth-based diabetes management strategies.Methods
We conducted semi-structured interviews of a purposive sample of patients and staff in the comprehensive telehealth arm of the Practical Telehealth to Improve Control and Engagement for Patients with Clinic-Refractory Diabetes Mellitus study. Using the lens of patient engagement, we applied directed content analysis to categorize themes across the five components of the intervention.Results
The purposive sample included 19 patients (79% male, 53% Black, varying levels of intervention engagement) and 8 staff. The telemonitoring component was associated with encouragement and motivation among patients; staff found satisfaction in providing metrics of success for participants. For the self-management component, patients saw staff as helpful with problem-solving; staff felt patients were receptive to education. Medication management supported medication adherence and optimization and was acceptable to patients. Diet/activity support motivated behavioral changes among patients. Staff felt that depression support allowed for responsiveness to medical and behavioral factors influencing self-management. Identified areas for improvement included staff time constraints, patient difficulties with taking and transmitting data, and challenges with patient adherence among those with mental health conditions.Conclusion
Findings from this study provide insights that may inform the design, implementation, and scalability of comprehensive telehealth models for diabetes management across diverse healthcare settings.Type
Department
Description
Provenance
Subjects
Citation
Permalink
Published Version (Please cite this version)
Publication Info
German, Jashalynn, Madeleine R Eldridge, Lucy Esteve, Anastasia-Stefania Alexopoulos, Connor Drake, Allison Lewinski, Hayden B Bosworth, David Edelman, et al. (2025). Perceptions of a comprehensive telehealth intervention in patients with persistently poor type 2 diabetes control. Journal of clinical and translational science, 9(1). p. e153. 10.1017/cts.2025.10082 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33987.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
Collections
Scholars@Duke
Jashalynn German
Anastasia Stefania Alexopoulos
Connor David Drake
Connor Drake is a health services researcher and implementation scientist. His research interests are at the intersection of primary care, population health management, social determinants of health, chronic illness care redesign, and virtual care. He has experience with policy analysis, electronic health record data, mixed and multi methods, community engaged research, and implementation and dissemination methods. Dr. Drake's research projects include leveraging telemedicine and other clinical informatics to improve chronic illness care and population health management; developing and implementing behavioral interventions and 'whole-person' care models for patients with cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders; and studying social care interventions to respond to social risk factors by promoting food security, housing stability, and social support to improve health outcomes.
Dr. Drake currently studies care models that feature food and nutrition security interventions (i.e., ‘Food is Medicine’) for patients at risk of food insecurity and at heightened cardiometabolic risk. This includes developing and testing scalable models for integrating food-based interventions—such as produce prescriptions—into clinical settings, investigating the relationships between food security and cardiometabolic health outcomes, and implementing social needs screening and response programs that promotes food security alongside other social determinants of health. Dr. Drake's research emphasizes implementation science approaches to understand how these ‘Food is Medicine’ programs can be best integrated and scaled across diverse healthcare settings, particularly in Veteran care settings and safety-net systems serving vulnerable populations.
Allison A. Lewinski
I am a health services researcher and implementation scientist with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) and the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System (VHA). My expertise spans diabetes distress, qualitative research methods, and virtual care delivery (including telehealth and digital health).
My research examines how virtual care interventions can reduce distress, improve self-management, expand access to evidence-based care, and enhance patient and population health outcomes. I focus on patient-, provider-, and system-level factors that influence the use and effectiveness of virtual care. This work has been funded by competitive grants, published in high-impact journals, presented at national conferences, and used to inform health system decision-making. I am frequently sought by colleagues locally and nationally for expertise in diabetes distress, qualitative methods, and virtual care strategies for grants, projects, and manuscripts.
I strive to improve outcomes for individuals with chronic illness by developing equitable, sustainable virtual care solutions and evaluating their implementation. To optimize these interventions, I apply qualitative and implementation science approaches to ensure alignment among patient needs, care modalities, disease states, and social contexts. My work addresses critical questions: for whom and for what purposes are these interventions effective, in which contexts, and at what points in the care continuum. Ultimately, my research advances the implementation and adoption of virtual care to reduce psychosocial distress and improve health outcomes through patient-clinician interactions and system-level innovations.
Hayden Barry Bosworth
Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities.
Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.
Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy
David Edward Edelman
My general interests are in the improve quality of care for chronic illness, using diabetes as a model. While I have performed research on screening for, diagnosis of, and clinical severity of unrecognized diabetes in patient care settings, my current line of work is in using health systems interventions to prevent cardiovascular disease, and to improve outcomes from comorbid diabetes and hypertension.
Karen E. Steinhauser
Dr. Steinhauser's primary interests are end-of-life care, medical sociology and patient-provider relationships. Specifically, she investigates the composition and measurement of the quality of life for patients and their families at the end of life. Dr. Steinhauser is a Health Scientist with the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, VA Medical Center, Durham; Professor, Department of Population Health Science and Medicine; Senior Fellow with the Duke University Center for Aging; Associate Chief for Research, Duke Palliative Care, and Director, Duke Residency Professional Development Coaching Program.
Karen E. Steinhauser, PhD is a social scientist dedicated to improving quality of life of patients, families, and providers during serious illness. She is a Health Scientist with the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, VA Medical Center, Durham and Professor, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Senior Fellow with the Duke University Center for Aging, and a former VA Career Development Awardee.
Karen Steinhauser, PhD, is Professor, Departments of Population Health Sciences and Medicine, Duke University Medical Center and Senior Fellow with the Duke University Center for Aging and Health Scientist with the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, VA Medical Center, Durham. Her research is dedicated to improving patient and family psychosocial and spiritual care, in serious illness. She has developed measurement tools to assess patient and family quality of life as well as psychosocial interventions to improve the experience of serious illness for patients and those who care for them. Dr. Steinhauser's research has used qualitative and qualitative methods, observational, trial and implementation research. Her latest work includes: developing a measure to assess the spiritual needs in palliative care, and addressing clinician resilience in palliative care. She serves as Associate Chief of Research for Duke Palliative Care, and Director of the Duke Residency Professional Development Coaching program. She has been a long-term member of AAHPM, having served on the research committee and being the 2015 Awardee for Excellence in Scientific Research in Palliative Care. She is the Director of Duke’s Residency Professional Development Coaching Program.
Area of expertise: Palliative Care, Qualitative Research
Unless otherwise indicated, scholarly articles published by Duke faculty members are made available here with a CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial) license, as enabled by the Duke Open Access Policy. If you wish to use the materials in ways not already permitted under CC-BY-NC, please consult the copyright owner. Other materials are made available here through the author’s grant of a non-exclusive license to make their work openly accessible.