The private health insurer of Generali Deutschland, Central Krankenversicherung, designed "initiative.diabetes" - an unique disease management program for insurees with type 2 diabetes. The innovative intervention concept was developed together with the Deutsches Institut für Telemedizin und Gesundheitsförderung (DITG). Customers are actively supported to establish lifestyle changes towards a healthier diet, regular physical activity and a successful diabetes self-management.
Through these lifestyle changes customers can learn how to control the disease. The combination of personal coaching and technical innovation was the decisive factor for the "initiative.diabetes" to be honoured with the MSD-Health award (MSD-Gesundheitspreis) in September, the most important German award for innovations in Health Economics.
How it works:
Simple and smart digital tools help customers to successfully integrate those changes into their daily living.
At the very beginning of the program every patient receives a starter kit, which includes a Smartphone (iPhone®), a blood glucose meter that can be used with the Smartphone (GlucoDock®), an activity tracker (a Fitbit®) and instructions to install the necessary software.
The patient is further introduced to his personal telephone coach, who supports the patient throughout the whole program.They communicate regularly through the online portal developed explicitly for this program (www.initiative-diabetes.de). All relevant health data is transmitted from the blood glucose meter and the activity tracker to the portal. The coach supervises the patient's blood glucose and can intervene if necessary. The program extends over a period of one year and is divided into two phases - the intensive phase and the maintenance phase.
During the intensive phase the coach and patient set goals regarding a reduction of the long-term blood glucose level HbA1c and reduction of the Body Mass Index. In the maintenance phase the patient is encouraged to establish the lifestyle changes in his/her daily living without regular contact with the coach. During this phase the coach still supervises the patient's blood glucose level and can be contacted by the patient via the message function of the portal.