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A pilot scheme to put diabetes patients in touch with their doctors 24/7 has won a Bahrain specialist 10,000 euros in grant funding.
Due to a break down in communications Dr Wiam Ibrahim Hussein, consultant in endocrinology at Bahrain's Gulf Diabetes Specialist Centre, had only two days to submit his project for using short-message services (SMS) to manage diabetes for the Sanofi-aventis awards.
But the judges liked what they saw and he was chosen as one of five doctors from across the GCC region to receive grants aimed at implementing new research, screening and care initiatives to prevent and treat diabetes across the Gulf.
Dr Hussein, 43, said: "We will be using the entire amount for research on our project for the next six months to one year.
"We conducted a pilot study to use SMS to communicate with our patients.
"As a clinic, we are sometimes very busy and so we formulated this project to stay connected with our patients who really need constant help and assistance.
"We exchanged mobile numbers between staff and patients to be in touch 24/7.
"With this study we are hoping to see if it really helps to control diabetes and help in weight loss and other assistance to the patients. We noticed a small change in our study but with this grant we are hoping to achieve much more.
"It was really nice to win considering that I had only two days before deadline to submit the project to Dubai-based Sanofi-aventis."
Dr Hussein's project will involve newly-diagnosed patients and equip their physicians, educators and nutritionists with smart phones. Patients will receive the cell phone numbers of each specialist which they can use to ask questions, solve problems and air concerns. At the end of six months, the patients' results will be compared to standard procedures to evaluate effectiveness.
