Integrating hospital medical care data with pharmaceutical education materials for diabetes self management

Diabetic patients need long-term treatment and follow-up exams as well as appropriate self-care pharmaceutical education to get the disease under control and to prevent possible complications. Pharmaceutical treatment plays an essential role in diabetes. If patients don't understand the medicines and dosages they take, their blood glucose control may be affected. In addition, the possibility of developing hypoglycemia may be increased. In this paper, we enhance the POEM system, previously developed for diabetic patient education, by providing diabetic patients' pharmaceutical education. The new system integrates both diabetic patients' pharmaceutical education information and medical care information to provide them with more comprehensive personalized medication information so that they can access the on-line system afterwards. It also strengthens patients' understanding of pharmaceutical functions, side-effects and relevant knowledge thus increasing patients' adherence of medication orders and having better control in their blood glucose levels.