D-Education Tech Goes Wayback
As part of developing some new diabetes education technology, I visited The Wayback Machine. If you've never been there you might find it very interesting to see how pretty much every website and page looked over time. For example, here's a page from Diabetech.net in 2005:
Among other things, we had just launched a new product called "Virtual CDE"™. It was a mobile cloud based system for delivering simple profile driven diabetes education directly to patients.
To use it was very simple. Just enter your mobile phone # and tell the system a little bit about yourself. Then, every few days, you received a message. Sometimes it was just a text. Other times it was a link to a video. Other times it might ask a question. And so on...
As pretty much every attempt at diabetes education, a few people really took it on and loved it. Most people thought it was too much work.
Copied from http://diabetech.net (February 2005)
Introducing Virtual-CDE™
Introducing a little helper for anyone living or working with diabetes…and a little educational intervention at those teachable moments.
The challenges of diabetes are best co-managed by a team of important players: the person with diabetes, their family, doctors, nurses, teachers, CDEs and other specialists. Virtual CDE is the easiest way to connect a person with diabetes to their extended team.
The Virtual CDE system consists of:
1. Mobile Data Management
Virtual Log Book
VCDE Notify
VCDE Request
VCDE Reminder
VCDE Report
2. QuickTips Educational Modules
Diabetech®’s Virtual Loop™ is the only technology available today that solves the problem of keeping the team on the same page while also helping to reinforce CDE delivered education – the foundation of every successful D-Team.
For more information about the FREE Virtual CDE offer and to find out how to customize it to your program, read on.
Connecting Your Team
Virtual CDE by Diabetech delivers advanced technology through everyday mobile devices like cell phones and pagers as well as email.
So, whenever:
Your son or daughter is having a difficult time on their own at school or anytime they are away from your side, you can be there with them, quietly, discreetly armed with all of the relevant information;
Or,
You have a patient in an intensive management mode, you can use Virtual CDE to deliver pointed, relevant educational QuickTipsSM to increase retention of those basic building blocks and optimize the impact of your diabetes education program.
In addition, Virtual CDE is designed to integrate in the future with the GlucoMON® for a completely automated and prompted experience. While the GlucoMON is pending FDA marketing approval and the focus of several clinical trials, Mobile Data Management starts today with Virtual CDE.
It’s finally realistic now to think that the patient can keep an accurate log book, simply, and without all the hassles of pen and paper, PDA software, PC software, Internet, Cables, etc… Just easy to use text messaging and information sent directly to your team.
The right information, at the right time, to the right person!
Mobile Data Management
Using 'Short Codes', anyone with a cell phone or pager can quickly and easily manage and interact with the rest of the team while transparently updating the patient’s record.
Virtual Logbook – using just a regular old cell phone or 2Way pager (no software to download), authorized members of the team make entries into the patient’s logbook using Short Message Service or SMS. Also known as text messaging, this feature is already available on most phones and usually, wireless carriers allow a certain number of free text messages. Otherwise, they typically cost $0.10/message or unlimited messaging plans can be obtained for around $5/month.
Standardized short codes include:
ca/ – carbohydrates, bs/ – blood sugar, mb/ – meal bolus, cb/ – correction bolus, sb/ – snack bolus, sc/ – site change marker, co/ – comments, ti – manual timestamp override, and more…
These short codes are then followed by the appropriate number(s) or a brief message typed by the person wishing to make the entry. Within seconds, this new data is received by Diabetech where it is added to the patient’s diabetes record.
This is just the beginning however. Continue now to read about what we can do with the data, automatically according to your personalized profile.
VCDE Notify – Based on the VCDE User Profile, we may then send a message to another member of the team, also using SMS or text messaging. This feature is especially useful for parents of kids and for CDEs in the midst of a high risk intensive management encounter such as DKA onset and release from the ED after DKA.
VCDE Request – Based on the VCDE User Profile, we may request data from a patient or a member of the team. An SMS would arrive via cell phone, pager or email and ask the recipient to reply with very specific information. This info can then be used to better understand the current disease state and might possibly result in the delivery of a relevant educational QuickTip.
VCDE Reminder – For example, patients have a difficult time remembering when they last changed their infusion site. It’s a constant sore spot for users of insulin pumps. Now they can quickly make an entry into their Virtual Logbook and VCDE reminds them and/or other members of the team when it’s time to change the infusion site.
VCDE Report – How great would it be if the right information was delivered to you, like the Sunday paper, rather than having to go get it yourself at the store? That’s how Virtual CDE works! On a regular schedule set by the patient or his/her caregiver, reports are mailed to the authorized account. In addition, current reports and logs can always be requested from VCDE by sending the “slb/” short code (Send Logbook).
QuickTips Educational Modules
Diabetech understands that it takes more than just great technology to make progress in controlling diabetes. Reinforcing approved educational content and using technology to intelligently deliver the right education at the right time is the way to change behavior. Relevant, timely and therefore valuable feedback, from the patient’s perspective, will influence patient behavior and thus outcomes.
Leveraging Diabetech’s unique perspective on the intelligent delivery of timely and relevant content, CDEs and Caregivers can now “touch” the patient between visits and reinforce the most important messages via text messaging to cell phones and pagers. QuickTips finally delivers on the often talked about promise of “intervention at the teachable moment”.
Get Started
Click here to Register for Virtual CDE. Be sure to note VCDE in the comments field of the Registration Form.
A registration package will be sent to you via email. With your permission, Diabetech will send a live demonstration of Virtual CDE to your cell phone.
While the basic QuickTips educational modules (including S.A.F.E.) are made available FREE to the public, personalized Mobile Data Management services require that we charge a nominal fee of $4.95/month billed direct to your VISA or MasterCard. As we post the testimonials of Virtual CDE users, you’ll see that our system is one of the best values going in diabetes care today.
My reason for sharing this today is two-fold:
Firstly, patients need to understand that a better version of diabetes care has been in progress for a very long time. There are many reasons why innovation is stifled and I won't get into that here on this post. Rest assured however, that some day, most people will be working with tools like this.
Perhaps you like what we did with Virtual CDE or maybe you think it's too much work. Regardless, it kills me to watch people waste scarce resources reinventing the wheel when they should be improving upon previous designs. So here it is along with several previously published clinical trial protocols.
I'd love to know your thoughts about tools like Virtual-CDE so please comment below.
