Researchers at Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University created a smartphone app and algorithm to help doctors and patients better manage type 1 diabetes.
"It's something meaningful to us and we can actually help patients learn from what they're doing," said Dr. Bithika Thompson, an assistant professor at Mayo Clinic.
Thompson and ASU assistant professor Dr. Maria Adela Grando led a team of students in developing a way for thousands of data points from patients' insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors to be combined with self-reported data from a smartphone app, where patients track their food, exercise and insulin.
The data is collected and analyzed by the computer system and used to create a concise printout of when a patient's blood sugar was low, the reason why and potential recommendations.
"Now we are able to know, what happened that day that the patient didn't do so well? Was it something the patient ate? Was it that the patient exercised but forgot to compensate?" Adela Grando said.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, approximately 600,000 adults in the state have diabetes (unspecified types). The American Diabetes Association estimates 1,250,000 people in the U.S. have the type 1 disease, while more than 30 million .
