3 ADVANCES THAT ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE OF DIABETES MANAGEMENT

How often have you taken medication exactly as it should be taken?

According to the World Health Organisation, improving medication adherence will have a greater impact on the overall health of the population than improvements to specific medical treatments.(ref1) Basically, take your medication correctly to feel better – it should be a simple fix, right?

Except, we know that there is a vast discrepancy between how people should take their medication, and how they actually take it.

Why is that?

There is no holiday from diabetes

Consider, for a moment, the reality of living with a chronic illness, like diabetes. Imagine being expected to calculate every single calorie, in every single meal you eat– then having to figure out how much medicine you need to take accordingly. Now you’ll need to accurately remember all of that information for the next calculation. That’s even before considering any of the other factors that can affect the amount of insulin needed – sleep, exercise, alcohol, and many more. (ref 3)

For people with diabetes, their condition occupies a lot of headspace. For those who are insulin dependent, this emotional burden can easily lead to missed insulin injections or failure to record doses.

On top of that, taking insulin incorrectly – whether it’s too much or too little – can have severe negative consequences, (ref 5) and having a bad experience with taking medication can impact how people manage their condition moving forwards. So, for example, if a person with diabetes has had a hypo before, they’re less likely to dose up to the right amount next time as they err on the side of caution. (ref 6,7)

Now imagine once again, you are living with diabetes. However, this time, you don’t need to keep a running mental maths calculation in your head at all times. There’s an app on your smartphone for that. The digital age has made living with diabetes much less difficult.

?Digital health solutions can give people the tools, ease, and confidence to dose the right amount of medicine, at the right time.

These solutions will only work if they don’t force people to engage with their condition any more than they already have to. We might not be able to fully escape diabetes just yet, but we can give people living with the disease a little break from the day-to-day grind of managing it.

?Creating smarter digital health solutions

Together, hardware, data and artificial intelligence (AI) can have a transformational impact on the everyday lives of those living with diabetes. But when we talk about the future of healthcare, the final element of that trio – AI – is the buzzword that often steals the show.

And while AI certainly holds a lot of promise, we must first master the other elements of that equation – the hardware we use and, crucially, the data we can collect with it. Because even the most sophisticated AI is only as good as the data we feed it.?

?With digital health solutions, consistently capturing accurate, credible, complete data about how someone takes their medication and their everyday behaviours and habits, and tracking this over time, is critical.

Historically though, healthcare data has been too sparse and incomplete to be used for effective decision making. But with access to smart devices, and the latest tech in the digital health space, more accurate data collection is possible. And, importantly, these devices work seamlessly in the background of people’s lives – that’s what makes them so effective.?

Continuous monitoring of insulin dosages, glucose levels and even exercise levels enables doctors and nurses to identify patterns of behaviour and demonstrate the consequences of these behaviours, so people can learn from them and adjust accordingly. And all of this information is accurately collected with minimal extra effort from the user.

These digital health solutions will also mean generalised treatment decisions can become a thing of the past. Healthcare professionals will be able to recommend more personalised, more effective, treatments and disease management strategies based on objective, accurate information.

?But how do we actually make this future a reality?

Collaboration is key

The short answer is: collaboration. The pharmaceutical industry must partner closely with technology companies to create digital health solutions designed for a better user experience, and ensure interoperability between different devices, services, companies and data sets. Of course, that will come with its own unique set of challenge, like data protection and responsibility.

?Users will need to be reassured that the data shared between various parties is being protected and used responsibly.

?And for the companies themselves, this will mean partnering with their peers (often competitors) – something that, I’m sure, will be an alien concept for many.

But here at Novo Nordisk, this spirit of collaboration is something we very much embrace. We truly believe this approach is the key to unlocking new heights of innovation and transforming the everyday lives of those managing chronic conditions.

What other advances are going to shape diabetes management? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

If you enjoyed reading this article, you might find this article on our new approach to digital ecosystems and collaboration interesting.

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References:

1.????Adherence to long-term therapies. World Health Organisation 2003. Available at: https://www.who.int/chp/knowledge/publications/adherence_full_report.pdf Last accessed: July 2021

2.????Polonsky WH, Henry RR. Poor medication adherence in type 2 diabetes: recognizing the scope of the problem and its key contributors. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2016:10 1299-1307.

3.????42 Factors that affect blood glucose. DiaTribe. Available at: https://diatribe.org/42factors. Last accessed: July 2021.

4.????Burden of Diabetes Management. Novo Nordisk Digital Health Survey by Edelman Intelligence, March 2020.

5.????Crowe J. Health care review: supporting clients with type 1 diabetes. Social Work Today. 2019;19(4):32.

6.?????Bloomgarden Z. Fear of hypoglycaemia. J Diabetes. 2017;9:108-110.

7.?????Fidler C, Christensen TE, Gillard S. Hypoglycemia: an overview of fear of hypoglycemia, quality-of-life, and impact on costs. J Med Econ. 2011;14:646-655.