Background Diabetes, which has been jeopardizing human health over the past few years, can be vanquished by improving glycemic control. This paper reports the findings of the pilot study, which employed InDiaTel, a remote monitoring system for diabetic patients. This concept was supported by the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India), and the results were validated by the MedZon Diabetes Centre (Vellore, India). Methods The primary objective of InDiaTel is to monitor glucose and other vital signs continuously. It has been designed using a PIC microcontroller through multichannel data acquisition. Serial communication is established between the patient unit and the nursing and doctor units, which are in remote areas. Results For clinical evaluation, the system's output was compared with the MedZon Diabetes Centre report in which a non-invasive glucose sensor showed a deviation of 15% with glucose tolerance test (G.T.T.). Other vital signs showed good accuracy of about 95% with the commercial device. The prototype was analyzed for usability, and was accepted by more than 80% of study subjects. Conclusion The positive finding of this system improved glycemic control and confirmed the feasibility of efficient health care management. The novelty can be attributed to non-invasive measurement, multichannel data acquisition and serial communication. © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS.