Information and Communication Technology Enabling Partnership in Person-centred Diabetes Management: Building a Theoretical Framework from an Inductive Case Study in The Netherlands

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to construct a theoretical framework for information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled partnership towards diabetes management.

Design: We conducted an inductive case study and held interviews on the development and use of an artificial pancreas (AP) system for diabetes management.

Setting: The study was carried out in the Netherlands with users of an AP system.

Participants: We interviewed six patients with type 1 diabetes, five healthcare professionals (two medical specialists and three diabetes nurses), and one policy advisor from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.

Results: We built a new theoretical framework for ICT-enabled person-centred diabetes management, covering the central themes of self-managing the disease, shared analysing of (medical) data and experiencing the partnership. We found that ICT yielded new activities of data sharing and a new role for data professionals in the provision of care as well as contributed to carefree living thanks to the semiautomated management enabled by the device. Our data suggested that to enable the partnership through ICT, organisational adjustments need to be made such as the development of new ICT services and a viable financial model to support these services.

Conclusion: The management of diabetes through ICT requires an adjustment of the partnership between persons with the chronic condition and the healthcare professional(s) in such a way that the potential for self-managing the condition by analysing the newly available (medical) data (from the AP system) together leads to an experience of partnership between patients and healthcare professionals.