I was thinking about all of the various research that we’ve supported over the years and also how we’ve talked about many different ways to use it. Sometimes I talk to people that get excited about physicians finally getting access to patient data in the field but I know that is a minority view. Sometimes the focus has been on status notifications to remote caregivers which is simply a near real-time copy of patient data sent to somebody who cares. In more recent times there has been a lot of discussion about social networks and keeping in touch with your online community but this is usually based on ‘data’ that you would type in yourself be that on a website or on your phone. In 2004 I wrote a paper titled “The Real-Time Virtual Loop” which described a roadmap of services once devices were connected into a virtual ecosystem for patient-centric health care.

What prompted me to start thinking about this was the lightning fast process of designing and implementing the first game of Mystery BGee which ended January 31st. As I said back in that paper, profound impact can be directed at patients as well as supporters once you have data in the centralized system. Because data collection is simple, frequent and reliable it’s a catalyst for what you might want to do with it. If it was hard to get at a game like Mystery BGee would be impossible or you would only get one winner - that one person who is willing to do whatever it takes to get their data from point A to point B.

The promise of connectivity is really more about implementing hunches at the speed of thought. After all, this is behavioral change we’re talking about so it’s more like pushing a wet noodle than ordering up a blood draw and a lab test. Our hunch was that we could reward a specific behavior:

- check blood sugar often and make sure we have your data (this part is easy because they are already doing it and it only takes a few seconds of their time anyway)

And that would result in two things:

- more people would perform the behavior
- people would receive positive reinforcement for the act of performing that behavior

In addition, because of the specific rules of the version we ran in the January edition of the game, people would know that in order to increase their odds of winning that they should check blood sugar more frequently than normal and they should use their GlucoMON daily. The GlucoMON usage frequency is an interesting one since most people only use it once a week for pattern management and education. The daily users are those people, usually kids at school, who need to use it for keeping mom apprised of the situation.

The other element to consider here is where the number crunching or feedback happens. For example, if you develop the world’s most sophisticated handheld device or turn a cell phone into a bg checker, you still might not get timely access to the data at the centralized management center where analysis across a community or population takes place.

Here’s the point of this post. While the example might be a diabetes game called Mystery BGee, the important thing this illustrates is that health care innovation can now go from a hunch to being live in a community of patients in less than an hour. Without a connected community already in place and easy to use technology at the patient’s fingertips, you can forget about these kinds of advances or micro tests. You also get to find out if your hunches are a hit or a flop within a few hours or days - adjust them and see what happens - repeat. Compare that to the typical clinical trial that takes months to plan, lots of money to finance and years before anyone ever gets to read about it.

So when we talk about connectivity in health care and all that goes with it, we need to make sure that the freedom to innovate is protected. We also need to make sure that the innovators have access to these platforms and communities and that’s why Diabetech has always had an open model - it’s available to anyone. So not just connectivity because we can, Connectivity because it will help us realize major advancements in self-care that have been promised for so long in the field of chronic disease management yet seldom delivered.

Once again, Diabetech® technology is at the forefront of innovation when it comes to engaging people in their own diabetes care.

Mystery BGee™ participation is easy.

So easy in fact that you don’t have to do anything to win. Just check your blood sugars as normal and connect regularly with your GlucoMON®- ADMS™. GlucoDYNAMIX™-ADMS does the rest. Each day, the system picks a random blood sugar number. Then it looks at the active patient profiles and stored patient health records including blood sugar results. The mygluco community member with the blood sugar result on that day that matches the Mystery BGee number or is the closest one to it Wins.

For more on Mystery BGee go here.