The biggest drawback is price: $99 at the online Apple Store (or local Apple Store), and $75 online or at your local Walgreens for the peripheral, and it includes 50 initial test strips. Additional strips are $65 per 50 online through Walgreens. The app is free, and the manufacturer does offer a program to reduce the cost for the strips, down to about $20.

But the real test is whether or not it helps people achieve better glycemic control. Husain points out that while some evidence exists to support the claim that mobile devices help with glycemic control, a full clinical trial is needed to test the effectiveness of this device, perhaps in comparison with other devices as well.

Are you a person with diabetes who uses this or another mobile device to track your BG levels? Does it help improve your success at glycemic control? What strengths and weaknesses does your system have? Tell us about it!

These are the kids that are learning independence, that are leaving the house more often, that aren’t eating right, or listening to their nagging parents. Now imagine them with a chronic illness such as diabetes. These kids are notorious for taking fewer and fewer blood glucose readings per day, eating improperly, and generally having a defiant streak in them.

Adolescents who used this device got points for compliance with the regular BG monitoring regimen, which earned them music and apps through the iTunes store. This pilot test of the system with twenty kids saw an increase in regular BG measurements of 49.5%, clearly demonstrating the need for a bigger study. The app also offered a Twitter-like microblog community capability for peer support and encouragement. Below is a video demonstrating use of the bant system.

One idea in this blog post caught my attention: their focus on developing an app to provide a solution in a way that can be clearly demonstrated:

Although we take the design and development of this smartphone platform very seriously, we aren’t interested in creating gadgets. As a research hospital, we take the opportunity cost of building such a system seriously. We need real tangible results. Hence, we spend more time and money evaluating the technologies that we develop than on building them. Our findings feed the next iteration of the technology. This is an example of evidence-based design. Consider it user-centered design on steroids.

After working for over two years to support evidence based research, it seems a natural next-step to consider applying such a standard to the development of medical devices and apps. I look forward to reading about a follow-up study on this devices.

Do you or someone you know struggle with juvenile diabetes? Would a system like this be helpful in encouraging healthy behavior? Why or why not? Tell us about it!

Use a Personal Health Record (PHR) system? You can “send your data to an authorized Third Party such as Microsoft HealthVault” (from the website). And Telcare claims they do not share or sell your personal data to marketers or advertisers, encouraging one to review their Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, at least on the FAQ page where they claim this, there is no link to that policy. It seems that a potential customer has to at least start the sign-up process before they can read the privacy policy, which makes for a rather ironic contradiction.

This mobile app is currently available for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Do you or anyone you know currently use this or a similar device? Or, if you are a person with diabetes, would you consider purchasing such a device? Tell us about it!

Statistics from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (link here) show that the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. is 8.3% or 25.8 million people. In 2007, the total cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. alone reached $174 billion. It is clear that diabetes is a major healthcare issue in modern medicine. On the basis of this, it is important that healthcare professionals are well informed about diabetes and its potential complications as it will have a significant impact on future practice.

Johns Hopkins and Skyscape have teamed up to offer the POC-IT Guide to Diabetes for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, part of a series of apps that also include HIV and antibiotic guides. The app itself is free, but to use the guides requires a paid subscription to the online Johns Hopkins Guides service, which iMedicalApps reports as “usually $39.95.”

“The Diabetes Guide is designed to assist clinicians by distilling complex material into need-to-know information, easily accessible for rapid viewing and which can be frequently updated” (from the review). The information resides on your mobile device, so it is available whether or not you have an Internet connection. The iMedicalApps review goes into great detail about the features of this app, concluding that The Diabetes Guide is a “complete, easy to use mobile application that covers the majority of the clinical aspects and associated complications in great depth.”

Do you have access to this app? If so, how useful and user-friendly do you find it?