Can Digital Technologies Help Overcome Diabetes? An Assessment of the Recent PHTI Review

Payers are always wary about funding new treatments for illnesses and conditions: When millions of dollars are at stake, payers want demonstrated improvements in outcomes. So do doctors and patients, before they go through the trouble of adopting a course of treatment. So there was much consternation recently when the Peterson Health Technology Institute (PHTI) released a report saying that digital interventions weren’t helping people with diabetes much and weren’t worth their added costs. PHTI has a comprehensive and detailed assessment framework that it applies to health care technologies to determine whether they demonstrate clinical effectiveness and cost savings. I exchanged some emails with PHTI about their diabetes report. I also talked to representatives from two companies listed in the report—one of which actually received a passing grade for improved outcomes—and with Andy Molnar, CEO of an industry consortium called the Digital Therapeutics Alliance. Some Basics About the Report PHTI did a typical literature review, evaluating a wide range of published studies and combining their conclusions. Their rigorous standards identified 1,139 possible studies but eliminated all but 49 in the end. These studies are listed in the appendices, along with other details. Solutions that use constant glucose monitoring (CGM) were categorically excluded from the report, although it says, “The increasing use of GLP-1 medications and CGMs represent important op...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Clinical Health IT Company Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring A1c ANdy Molnar Behavior Change Behavior Health CGM Continuous Glucose Monitoring Dario Health diabetes Diabetes Monitoring Digital Health Digital Ther Source Type: blogs