'Patients can better control diabetes with eHealth'
Chinese University researchers on Thursday said diabetes patients who used the government’s electronic health record system are 40 percent more likely to have better control of their conditions. The eHealth app was launched in 2016, and one of its functions is to allow patients to record and manage their blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate.  The university, along with the Health Bureau, studied more than 100,000 diabetes patients from January 2021 to May 2022. About 30 percent of the patients used the app, but only 1,700 used the function to monitor their health conditions. Professor Martin Wong said those who used the health management function had better blood sugar control than other patients. “We regard this as a useful tool to assist the management of diabetes among these patients, but we do not think that this could completely replace a doctor seeing the patient,” he said. Wong also pointed out that the app enables easy access to patient information. “Instead of the doctor going into the computer system and load a ‘thick file’, the electronic mobile phone app will serve the purpose of a very quick retrieval of data, and I think the clinical consultation time will be minimised and also optimised as well.”