Tag Archives: integration

2015 Diabetes Blog Week Day 4- Changes

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Diabetes Blog Week

When I think about diabetes and what I’d like to see changed, one word comes to mind. Well maybe 2, a cure would be a nice change. But the word I’d like to focus on is integration.

Integration. I could yell it from the rooftops. Integration would make diabetes so much easier to manage. It would make communication so much more effective. It would make our lives in general a little less burdensome. 

What exactly am I talking about?

I want diabetes devices talking to other diabetes devices. I want my pump, my meter, and my CGM to all communicate constantly. And while I know this is unrealistic, I wish that this communication could happen across companies so that my dexcom CGM could talk to my Medtronic pump or a Bayer meter could talk to an animas pump. I want numbers and data flowing freely from one to the other, whether it’s then used in a calculation, helping to inform a decision, or just being stored for later retrieval.

I want diabetes devices talking to non diabetes devices. I want my CGM numbers and my pump talking with my phone, presenting my data (carbs, boluses, blood sugars) in an easy to read and accessible manner in an app. I want their data showing up on a graph on my computer or tablet. I want other apps that I’m using to integrate in a platform with my diabetes data, whether it’s food tracking that I do or exercise tracking. How great would it be for one app that would have my carb and bolus information from my pump, graphed against my blood sugars that are collecting from my meter and CGM, informed by my Fitbit tracker active minutes and steps, and integrated with the food that I tracked during the day in My Fitness Pal?! Think about how much easier it would be to see a trends and potential causes for highs and lows. Based on the food you ate here, it looks like you gave too much insulin and that’s why you dropped low here.

I want ALL of these devices talking to my doctor. I want to be able to walk into my endocrinologist’s office or even my primary care physician, or eye doctor, or really any doctor’s office and have all of this information available to them. I want the information from all of my devices to be consolidated into a format that is integrated right into my medical record. Then when I go to the endo, they aren’t making suggestions based off of just my CGM, they are looking at the complete picture with little burden to me since all of this uploading, syncing, and integration happens automatically. 

I’m hopeful that these changes are coming soon, that this is the future of diabetes self-care. Integration will be a requirement, not just a nice feature. 


This post is part of the 2015 Diabetes Blog Week. Today’s topic: Today let’s talk about changes, in one of two ways.  Either tell us what you’d most like to see change about diabetes, in any way.  This can be management tools, devices, medications, people’s perceptions, your own feelings – anything at all that you feel could use changing.  OR reflect back on some changes you or your loved one has seen or been through since being diagnosed with diabetes.  Were they expected or did they surprise you? You can read more posts on this topic here. 

Integration

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“What is it?”

The devices gathered around, peering inquisitively at the band that lay in the middle of the circle.

“I don’t know,” B.G. Meter replied, inching closer.

“Don’t touch it! We don’t know what it does! It might be dangerous!”

Meter gently tapped on the black surface and a series of bright white circles bounced across a mini screen.

“Look it lights up!” Gigi exclaimed.

“Why hello there,” the band stretched out, springing to life. My name is Fitbit Flex. And who are all of you?”

“Oh um, hi. My name is B.G. Meter and these are my friends Insul N. Pump and Gigi CGM. We didn’t mean to bother you, but we noticed that the Human started wearing you and we were curious what you were doing.”

“Oh how lovely! It’s always a pleasure to meet new devices. I’m a tracker. When the Human puts me on her wrist I can tell her how many steps she takes each day, how many calories she’s burned and even how well she slept!”

“Oh wow. You must take a lot of blood to figure out all that information. Where is your lancet hidden? Not that I was checking you out or anything, but you have a rather sleek design.”

“You’re making me blush, Meter. I actually don’t need to take any blood to figure out those numbers.”

“Whattt!? No blood? But you’re still under the Human’s skin right, like Gigi or Insul?”

“Nope. I prefer to stay away from bodily fluids and functions.”

“Crazy! How come you can’t do that, Gigi? So how does the Human know how many steps she’s taken? I noticed you don’t have a very big screen.”

“Yes, bigger is not always better, Insul. When the human lightly taps on me, my dots show what percentage of her goal she has completed. One dot is 20%, two is 40%, etc. But more importantly, if the Human takes out her phone and opens my app, she can see all these numbers and graphs right on her phone.”

“Wait, let me get this straight. You send your information right to the Phone, the thing that the Human always has with her?! And she doesn’t have to type anything in? We’ve been trying to get our numbers on the Phone for ages, but it will never take it from us!”

“Well that seems rather silly to me. The app also lets the Human keep track of other things too like her weight, calories eaten, and how much water she drinks. She can even cheer on or taunt her friends to reach their goals.”

“How can we get our numbers on there?? I know that the Human can manually type in that kind of information, but she’s kind of lazy. It would be perfect if her blood sugars and units of insulin delivered was wireless sent and synced right in your app. With your information about steps and activity and food logging and our information about glucose numbers and insulin, we could really help the Human understand the big picture!”

“You know what, Gigi, that’s a great idea. Hopefully someone smart is working on figuring that out right now.”

I sure hope so.