Comparing Glucose Outcomes Following Face-to-Face and Remote Initiation of Flash Glucose Monitoring in People Living With Diabetes

Background: When launched, FreeStyle Libre (FSL; a flash glucose monitor) onboarding was mainly conducted face-to-face. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a change to online starts with patients directed to online videos such as Diabetes Technology Network UK for education. We conducted an audit to evaluate glycemic outcomes in people who were onboarded face-to-face versus those who were onboarded remotely and to determine the impact of ethnicity and deprivation on those outcomes.

Methods: People living with diabetes who started using FSL between January 2019 and April 2022, had their mode of onboarding recorded and had at least 90 days of data in LibreView with >70% data completion were included in the audit. Glucose metrics (percent time in ranges) and engagement statistics (previous 90-day averages) were obtained from LibreView. Differences between glucose variables and onboarding methods were compared using linear models, adjusting for ethnicity, deprivation, sex, age, percent active (where appropriate), and duration of FSL use.

Results: In total, 935 participants (face-to-face 44% [n = 413]; online 56% [n = 522]) were included. There were no significant differences in glycemic or engagement indices between onboarding methods and ethnicities, but the most deprived quintile had significantly lower percent active time (b = -9.20, = .002) than the least deprived quintile.

Conclusions: Online videos as an onboarding method can be used without significant differences in glucose and engagement metrics. The most deprived group within the audit population had lower engagement metrics, but this did not translate into differences in glucose metrics.