Innovation: Type 2 Diabetes is a boost for not only family and Healthcare providers support, but also requires patients’ self-care skills. With the recent COVID-19 pandemic repositioning virtual care, developing a digital online platform containing verse information on self-care practices, and T2D management to be accessed remotely by T2D patients is a great innovation for Healthcare systems in Nigeria. In Nigeria, patients lack medical information, and pay out-of-pocket for their health including transportation cost. Hence, developing and deploying online resources to T2D patients will not only improve their health management skills but will also increase their knowledge, motivation and participation in decisions concerning their care. The innovative online information platform will give them the opportunity to interact and share experiences with other T2D patients thereby enhancing their illness coping skills. Having access to the online platform will avail them the opportunity to ask medical or medication-related questions to be clarified by a HCP that comes online.

Sector/Industry Application: Health

Description: Self-care is a crucial component of Type 2 Diabetes management. It involves all the day-to-day activities a patient engages in to maintain good health outcomes. Self-care such as healthy eating, physical activity, blood glucose monitoring, medication-taking, and problem-solving, results in glycemic control. Despite this benefit, patients are often faced with the challenges of lifestyle modifications due to lack of knowledge and information on lifestyle as a result of poor self-management support. An integrated digital self-care information platform that would serve as a portal for information sharing and exchange is essential but lacking in Nigeria for T2D patients. This study aims to develop an online self-care information platform that will facilitate patients’ access to information on self-care practices to enhance diabetes management. The specific objectives are to: develop and deploy an online information platform for patients with T2D, train and coach patients on the use of the platform, explore patients’ views, perception, and acceptability of the online digital information/resource platform, and evaluate the impact of the online resources on glycemic control, quality of life, satisfaction with the online resources, level of distress, mediation adherence, glucose monitoring, frequency of feet checks, the prevalence of depressive symptoms after the baseline (zero Month), and at 3 months intervals (3 Months, 6 Months and 9 Months). The co-creation of the content of the online resources will be jointly done with other Health Care Providers (HCPs), including Endocrinologists, Pharmacists, Nurses, Dieticians, and T2D patients to ensure the resources are culturally accepted and covers all aspect of diabetes management. A focus group discussion with T2D patients will be carried out to elicit areas/aspects of self-care they lack information on. The study will employ a quasi-experimental design. T2D patients will be assigned to have access to the online resources with the usual care or receive only the usual clinic care

Problem: Studies have shown that self-care practice among patients with Type 2 Diabetes is low, and contributing to poor glycemic control and poor quality of life. The low self-care practice has been attributed to patient's lack of knowledge of self-care due to a lack of accessible medical information, as a result of low participation in decision-making during clinic encounters. Therefore, this study intends to solve the problem of non-adherence to self-care practices/lifestyle modifications and poor access to healthcare services, as a result of poor access to information/resources on self-care that can be accessed remotely anytime, anywhere without necessarily visiting the hospital. This innovation has the potential to increase access to healthcare services, improve adherence to prescribed medications and other lifestyle, prolong onset of diabetes complications and improve the wellbeing of patients with Type 2 Diabetes