Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia, are trialing a new smartphone app that helps people with diabetes monitor their blood sugar levels and enables health professionals to manage their patients remotely. The app provides immediate feedback to the patient about his or her blood glucose readings through color codes, charts, and tables. This feedback may help patients better assess and understand their own conditions and improve self-care, and may subsequently reduce their risk of diabetes-related complications, such as vision loss, kidney failure, and amputations.
“Blood glucose readings are sent directly via blue-tooth technology from the glucose meter to a smartphone and then immediately to secure servers on the Internet where doctors and nurses can access the readings,” UQ Research Fellow Farhad Fatehi, PhD, said. “This is a faster and more accurate way of relaying the information than patients having to write out their results and then read or send these on to health professionals for assessment. The app could allow health professionals to treat more patients at any one time, with greater confidence in the data.”
