Telehealth System Based on the Ontology Design of a Diabetes Management Pathway Model in China: Development and Usability Study

Background: Diabetes needs to be under control through management and intervention. Management of diabetes through mobile health is a practical approach; however, most diabetes mobile health management systems do not meet expectations, which may be because of the lack of standardized management processes in the systems and the lack of intervention implementation recommendations in the management knowledge base. Objective: In this study, we aimed to construct a diabetes management care pathway suitable for the actual situation in China to express the diabetes management care pathway using ontology and develop a diabetes closed-loop system based on the construction results of the diabetes management pathway and apply it practically. Methods: This study proposes a diabetes management care pathway model in which the management process of diabetes is divided into 9 management tasks, and the Diabetes Care Pathway Ontology (DCPO) is constructed to represent the knowledge contained in this pathway model. A telehealth system, which can support the comprehensive management of patients with diabetes while providing active intervention by physicians, was designed and developed based on the DCPO. A retrospective study was performed based on the data records extracted from the system to analyze the usability and treatment effects of the DCPO. Results: The diabetes management pathway ontology constructed in this study contains 119 newly added classes, 28 object properties, 58 data properties, 81 individuals, 426 axioms, and 192 Semantic Web Rule Language rules. The developed mobile medical system was applied to 272 patients with diabetes. Within 3 months, the average fasting blood glucose of the patients decreased by 1.34 mmol/L (P=.003), and the average 2-hour postprandial blood glucose decreased by 2.63 mmol/L (P=.003); the average systolic and diastolic blood pressures decreased by 11.84 mmHg (P=.02) and 8.8 mmHg (P=.02), respectively. In patients who received physician interventions owing to abnormal attention or low-compliance warnings, the average fasting blood glucose decreased by 2.45 mmol/L (P=.003), and the average 2-hour postprandial blood glucose decreased by 2.89 mmol/L (P=.003) in all patients with diabetes; the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased by 20.06 mmHg (P=.02) and 17.37 mmHg (P=.02), respectively, in patients with both hypertension and diabetes during the 3-month management period. Conclusions: This study helps guide the timing and content of interactive interventions between physicians and patients and regulates physicians' medical service behavior. Different management plans are formulated for physicians and patients according to different characteristics to comprehensively manage various cardiovascular risk factors. The application of the DCPO in the diabetes management system can provide effective and adequate management support for patients with diabetes and those with both diabetes and hypertension.