It was bound to happen. I knew it was only a matter of time and today was the day. I’m talking about sitting in a Starbucks prepared to pay my $9.95 ransom charge to hop on their access point so that I could do some email w file attachments no doubt in the midst of a several hundred mile trek through Texas. Almost the moment I turned on my laptop I was connected to (linksys) - Excellent (connection quality that is). Naturally intrigued, I searched for all available wireless network access points and sure enough the friendly t-mobile service was there and waiting.

So, I feel pretty confident in saying that the days of paying for broadband access are numbered. How much longer can Starbucks take the hit for charging due to some ancient contract they did w T-Mobile so many eons ago (in Internet years anyway)?

I could go on about how this impacts medical data and patient care… yada yada… but I think sharing my newfound ‘freedom of information access’ experience today of free Wi-Fi in a normally hostile environment is plenty all by itself!

And if my experience isn’t enough for you, link to the rest of the story to learn about Starbucks partnership w Apple and their iTunes service which, you guessed it, doesn’t require you to pay for access via T-Mobile.

Here it is! Making great progress on this front lately and thought I would share the good news w/anyone interested in new paradigms of diabetes care including acceleration of the clinical trials process for new cures, new cure therapies and new devices to assist people with tight blood sugar control.

Announcing the SWEETKIDSNETWORK

Check it out online at www.sweetkidsnetwork.org and check back often to see progress announcements and to find out about research trials looking to recruit patients from the Sweet Kids Network.

Or more simply put, I won’t be the idiot dad calling home to ask “What’s for dinner?” right in the middle of what is most likely a site change or some form of trouble shooting the insulin pump, etc…

I just thought I would take a minute to share what it’s like to have real-time automated intelligence within the family dynamic of type 1 diabetes. I don’t know too many endocrinologists who would understand why I would want to get a real-time glucose alert (via email as shown above or on my cell phone which is my primary DI interface) when diabetes is managed by trends.

Yet, providers that work with patients in our trials are thrilled to receive automated blood sugar trending reports based on algorithms that define high risk. While these reports are infrequent, they are reliable and improve efficiency. That’s been missing from the world of self-reported patient data for years.

In this new world of patient-centric technologies, we need to realize how many players are on the patient’s team and that the needs of each team member are different. With automated diabetes management systems (ADMS), everyone gets what they ordered and none of what they don’t want or need.

I wonder what’s for dinner?