Collocated Personal Diabetes Data (CPDD)
A research project addressing ways of improving the health of people with diabetes by providing patients and health care personnel information based on collocated data from personal sensors and other relevant data. If we manage to design the CPDD system in a way that is user-friendly, and that provides patients and their health care helpers with useful information regarding diabetes health factors, this may constitute a concrete contribution to Helse Nord’s aim of giving patients the best possible foundation for their treatment.
Background
In the national strategy plan for diabetes 2006-2010, the Norwegian health minster emphasizes that diabetes is one of the most prevalent lifestyle diseases in our lifetime, and that its challenges have to be met in a vigorous and holistic way. The same plan addresses the importance of prevention of secondary diseases, and of switching the focus from medication to self-help and change in lifestyle. Furthermore, the action plan for diabetes specified by Helse Nord RHF addresses user participation and states that the patient has to be the final decision-maker regarding her treatment, and one should aim to give these individuals the best foundation possible to do this.
Goals
By providing diabetes patients and their health care helpers with processed and collated personal diabetes data from health monitoring, a) the patient’s motivation to alter unhealthy habits will increase b) the health of the patients will improve c) the burden of the health care sector will decrease b) the health of the patients will improve c) the burden of the health care sector will decrease
Impact
The well-known cornerstones in good diabetes management are healthy diet, blood glucose management, exercise and education, in line with the recommendations provided by NSAM (Norsk selskap for allmennmedisin, now replaced by the Norwegian College of General Practitioners), and are all elements in both Årsand's PhD dissertation and this Post.Doc. project. It is rare to see use of collated personal diabetes data in literature; some research can however be found, as indicated in the Method chapter above. Having the previously described technologies, the user experience, and the very competent scientific collaborators as part of this project, we consider the prospect of designing and performing research on a practical tool for the target groups as promising. If we manage to design the CPDD system in a way that is as user-friendly as our current Few Touch application elements and that provides patients and their health care helpers with useful information regarding diabetes health factors, this may constitute a concrete contribution to Helse Nord’s aim of giving patients the best possible foundation for their treatment. The CPDD system may result in functionalities that provide earlier health status warnings, better follow-up, fewer complications, and better self-management; all components that ultimately lead to a better health and less pressure on the health care sector. Based on the positive interests in our previous publications, and also the limited research conducted on the CPDD concept, I expect that the results from this project will be well received by the medical, medical informatics and telemedicine research environments and publishers.
Methods
Data gathering and data analysis, focus groups, workshops, questionnaire, interviews and user tests, workshops and meetings with health care personnel. processing data from sensors and other relevant data, incorporate methods and algorithms.
Stakeholders:
Helse Nord, UNN, University of Washington (Seattle, USA), Aalborg University (Denmark)
Publications:
1. Årsand E, Tatara N, Østengen G, Hartvigsen G. Using the Mobile Phone as a Type 2 Diabetes Self-Help Management Tool - A One-Year Study. 3rd International Conference On Advanced Technologies & Treatments For Diabetes, February 2010, Basel, Switzerland (Poster).
2. Årsand E, Tatara N, Østengen G, Hartvigsen G. Mobile-Phone-based Self-Management Tools for Type 2 Diabetes – The Few Touch Application. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, March 2010 (Paper).
3. Skrøvseth SO, Årsand E, Joakimsen RM, Godtliebsen F. Statistical Modeling of Aggregated Lifestyle and Blood Glucose Data in Type 1 Diabetes Patients. International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine, February 2010. (Paper)
4. Årsand E, Tatara N, Østengen G, Hartvigsen G. Wireless and Mobile Technologies Improving Diabetes Self-Management. Handbook of Research on Mobility and Computing: Evolving Technologies and Ubiquitous Impacts (Book chapter).
5. Tatara N, Årsand E, Østengen G, Samuelsen T, Andersson N, Varmedal R, Hartvigsen G. Diabetes Diary based on a Mobile Phone – Users’ Experiences and Iterative Design Process. The 6th international workshop on Wearable Micro and Nanosystems for Personalised Health (pHealth 2009), Oslo, Norway, 24-26 June 2009. (Poster)
6. Årsand E. Mobile Pasientverktøy (Mobile Patient Tools), in The 3rd regional Research Conference within Medicine and Health, by Northern Norway Regional Health Authority and University of Tromsø, 25. and 26. mars 2009. (Abstract)
7. Årsand E, Varmedal R, Nilsen H, Østengen G, Hartvigsen G. Experiences from using a Diabetes Diary based on a Mobile Phone - The Few Touch Application. 2nd International Conference On Advanced Technologies & Treatments For Diabetes, February 2009, Athens, Greece (Poster).
8. Tatara N, Årsand E, Nilsen H, Hartvigsen G. A Review of Mobile Terminal-Based Applications for Self-Management of Patients with Diabetes. International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine, February 2009, Cancun, Mexico. (Paper)
9. Hartvigsen G, Årsand E, Botsis T, Vuurden K, Johansen M, Bellika JG. Reusing Patient Data to Enhance Patient Empowerment and Electronic Disease Surveillance. The Journal on Information Technology in Healthcare 2009; 7(1): 4-12 (Paper).