Diabetes, like COVID-19, is a wicked problem

Abstract

Diabetes has long been mistaken as a tame problem. Following a recipe, playing chess, and doing open-heart surgery are tame problems. Tame problems can be solved by having engineers, clinicians, and scientists develop guidelines, algorithms, and systems that achieve easily measured outcomes that matter to these same stakeholders. For example, the longstanding and accepted approach in diabetes has been to empower experts to create algorithms, therapies, technologies, and models to manage glucose within controlled conditions, which are then offered to people with diabetes and their clinicians.