Mobile App for Simplifying Life With Diabetes: Technical Description and Usability Study of GlucoMan.

Kaspar S Schmocker,Kerstin Denecke,Fabian S Zwahlen

doi:10.2196/diabetes.8160

Abstract

BackgroundPatients with diabetes can be affected by several comorbidities that require immediate action when occurring as they may otherwise cause fatal or consequential damage. For this reason, patients must closely monitor their metabolism and inject insulin when necessary. The documentation of glucose values and other relevant measurements is often still on paper in a diabetes diary.ObjectiveThe goal of this work is to develop and implement a novel mobile health system for the secure collection of relevant data referring to a person’s metabolis and to digitize the diabetes diary to enable continuous monitoring for both patients and treating physicians. One specific subgoal is to enable data transmission of health parameters to secure data storage.MethodsThe process of implementing the system consists of (1) requirements analysis with patients and physicians to identify patient needs and specify relevant functionalities, (2) design and development of the app and the data transmission, and (3) usability study.ResultsWe developed and implemented the mobile app GlucoMan to support data collection pertaining to a person’s metabolism. An automated transfer of measured values from a glucometer was implemented. Medication and nutrition data could be entered using product barcodes. Relevant background knowledge such as information on carbohydrates was collected from existing databases. The recorded data was transmitted using international interoperability standards to the MIDATA.coop storage platform. The usability study revealed some design issues that needs to be solved, but in principle, the study results show that the app is easy to use and provides useful features.ConclusionsData collection on a patient’s metabolism can be supported with a multifunctional app such as GlucoMan. Besides monitoring, continuous data can be documented and made available to the treating physician. GlucoMan allows patients to monitor disease-relevant parameters and decide who accesses their health data. In this way, patients are empowered not only to manage diabetes but also manage their health data.

Highlights

Chronische Krankheiten sind das dominante Gesundheitsproblem des 21. Jahrhunderts und gehen für die Betroffenen und das Gesundheitssystem mit hohen Belastungen einher.
In einer systematischen Übersichtsarbeit beurteilten Bodenheimer et al [4] neununddreissig Studien, die den Effekt des CCM auf Qualität und Kosteneffizienz bei Patienten mit Diabetes untersucht haben.
An hand eines Klassifizierungsschemas wurde festgehalten welches der vier ausgewählten Elemente des CCM (Selbstmanagement, Entscheidungshilfen, klinische Informationssysteme und Aufbau des Versorgungssystems) als Intervention in den einzelnen Studien beschrieben wurden.

Summary

Introduction

Chronische Krankheiten sind das dominante Gesundheitsproblem des 21. Jahrhunderts und gehen für die Betroffenen und das Gesundheitssystem mit hohen Belastungen einher. In einer systematischen Übersichtsarbeit beurteilten Bodenheimer et al [4] neununddreissig Studien, die den Effekt des CCM auf Qualität und Kosteneffizienz bei Patienten mit Diabetes untersucht haben.

Results

Conclusion