I looked up the Expert Patients Programme as a ‘future of health care’ example given by Amy Tenderich during a recent interview. This six-week educational program is highly regarded in the UK and certainly represents something different from traditional physician-centered health care.

Patient-Centered Devices

While this program is interesting, there are programs currently running all over the US like those that use Diabetech technology to simplify the patient interface, analyze behavior and biometric data, and automate feedback all without a human in the middle or even requiring the patient to do anything extra beyond just checking their blood sugar. There’s also the work being done by BodyMedia out of Pittsburgh. Thanks to excellent design, they are able to capture activity data and its correlated cousins (ie - calories burned) and incorporate this data into their partner’s weight management/activity based programs. Or how about the ‘laser-beams’ that make the new lancing device from Pelikan Technologies ‘light-years’ ahead of traditional lancet technology?

Patient-Centered Diagnostics

Beyond the convenience of not even having to visit the doctor or go to a lab just to get frequent blood tests, patients now have access to highly accurate diagnostic testing from healthcordia labs for screening their blood, too. This is the only way to detect abnormal blood composition (hematology); a condition that silently exists in thousands of people any many thousands more who don’t even know it. Left undetected, the people consistently receive falsely high and falsely low A1c results as do their physicians. Without warning, complications set in due to elevated glucose levels or severe hypoglycemia in spite of frequent physician visits. And after making sure of their blood composition, this same lab service provides them with the world’s most accurate A1c - the only test that is always within 0.1 of the True A1c percentage as compared to commonplace A1c testing which is frequently 0.3 to 0.5 or more off from the True A1c. The screening & A1c results also leverage the Internet and are accessible via the patient’s secure online health record, too.

So what are these Core Concepts at the heart of Patient-Centered Health Care? In 2003, my team developed a Poster Presentation including Eric Link and Steve Ponder and we came up with something we called the “Six Pillars of Proactive Diabetes Care”:

1) Wireless - Simplifies connectivity between devices and communication between people

2) Mobile - Not tied to any one location. Self-care happens in the moment so it needs to be portable.

3) Automated - No extra work!

4) Quality Data - Garbage In / Garbage Out

5) Group Analysis - We now call this social networks and peer group analysis

6) Feedback - Changing behavior is the result of feedback over the long term

Our view in 2003 was really limited to devices. So, looking at the whole landscape of diabetes care including devices, programs and provider care delivery, we need to pick an entirely new set of core concepts. In a future post, I’ll try to come up with a current view of these ‘Patient-Centric Core Concepts’.

Last 5 posts by Kevin

• What's in a name? - March 7th, 2010
• Steve Ponder MD, CDE - Headliner Extraordinaire - January 22nd, 2010
• Fallen Hero Now a Competitor? - January 20th, 2010
• Man Made Barriers to a Man Made Solution - January 16th, 2010
• Healthy Families of South Texas - Launch Day - December 31st, 2009

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Automated Diabetes Management System, Clinical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.