User Experience With the Innovation in Diabetes Care Technology
From the first discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes to personal glucometers to measure blood sugar and blood glucose levels.
Gabriel Ruiz
September 19, 2022
From the first discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes to personal glucometers to measure blood sugar and blood glucose levels. Technological advances have helped diabetics for a long time.
Care for diabetics and other health problems has been no exception, as far as advances during the pandemic caused by COVID-19 are concerned.
Thanks to the vision and practice we have had under the “new normal”, it was necessary to create new and better ways of care for diabetics and their medical emergencies.
According to WHO, “about 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year. Both the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades.”
And according to the CDC, 34.2 million people of all ages—or 10.5% of the US population—had diabetes.
This is an important number as far as the population sector is concerned. So, what have been the technological advances that have been made over time—giving it a necessary sprint during the COVID-19 times—to help diabetics?
Before the pandemic, some new models, such as Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), were gaining traction. Continuously improving on their way to becoming a standard in diabetes care and also reducing the costs for their care.
But, as often with new developments in the medical field, it experienced several hurdles for users to see a necessary use in their daily lives. COVID, and the health restrictions it brought with it, helped to lower those inhibitions and increase its use.
Here are some examples that have helped mankind since the discovery of insulin.
Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs)
Traditionally, a diabetic needs to get a small sample of blood, place it on a test strip, and the BGM will tell them how much glucose is in their blood. The key component to that is the test strip.
Unlike glucose meters, The CGM system use a filament coated with an enzyme inserted into the interstitial space below the skin's surface to measure the amount of glucose in the fluid between cells every few minutes and transmit the data wirelessly to a device or your smartphone.
This can assist in identifying patterns that may be helpful for your treatment. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA). These devices can also alert you when your glucose level is too low or too high.
Some benefits of the CGMs can be, improving the quality of glycemic control, reducing the risk of hypoglycemia, and permitting the selection of lower target levels for mean glucose and HbA1c.
Biotechnology
It was a total innovation for a wide range of diseases and circumstances; diabetes was no exception.
These are specialized medical consultations that are divided into two parts, the medical expert and the patient. By using a live online video server.
According to Patel PS, Jiang B, Marcelli M, Mediwala SN, Vasudevan MM. “eConsults for diabetes care in the Veterans Administration Health System have resulted in more rapid access to specialty care with comparable clinical outcomes to in-person care.”
In COVID-19, both outpatient and inpatient eConsults have enabled specialty endocrinologists to provide timely and efficient consultations. It also enables endocrinologist-led foundational education to providers who benefit from real-time case feedback, bringing back joy to endocrinology work.
Insulin Pumps
According to Diabetes Ther, the year 2021 marked the 100 anniversary of the discovery of insulin, and in 1970, BD manufactured the first one-piece insulin syringe with an integral needle. It took almost 4 years to take it to the market and be sold for the first time.
In the case of having type 2 diabetes and having to inject insulin multiple times a day, a pump is an alternative to self-injection. “An insulin pump is a medical device that delivers insulin into the tissue just underneath the skin,” says Megan Porter, an expert in the diabetes field.
According to the Endocrine Society guidelines, the patients should be assessed for their psychologic status, prior compliance with diabetes self-care, willingness, and motivation to try the device, and convenience of the required follow-up visits before suggesting CSII.
The pump has user-specific in-built programs to dispense insulin at basal rates and in incremental doses before meals.
This feature allows the removal of the inherent variations associated with the injection depth and multiple injection sites that are typical of conventional subcutaneous injections.
The infusion site must be changed only once every 2–3 days. Therefore, insulin pumps eliminate the need for multiple injections daily, resulting in less insulin variation.
Meal delivery services
Even if they were not specifically made for diabetic patients. Home delivery services became a must for people who could not go out to buy their own food because they were more likely to get COVID-19.
COVID-19 presented an unprecedented concern to all health sectors. The medical system had to evolve so as not to be left out of COVID and to be able to continue to serve sick patients with various diseases.
The pandemic presented a worldwide change in how we view several things that we had previously thought were regular or the norm. The medical response was to present innovations so as not to leave patients aside.
Thanks to the new technologies developed – and yet to be developed – we can stay at the forefront of diabetes care and other diseases when it is needed most in our health care.