Why Your Diabetes App Should Track and Help You Manage All Aspects of Your Diabetes

The Importance of Comprehensive Diabetes Management in Lowering Long-Term Risk and Improving Outcomes

‍

Diabetes is a condition which affects many parts of the body in different ways at different times during its lifespan.  The aim of diabetes management at earlier stages in its lifespan is maintain good blood glucose control which, if sustained, will significantly reduce the risk of long-term complications.

But is diabetes only about blood glucose control and nothing else?  Far from it...  Clinical best practice involves a holistic view of diabetes management, where patients may need to modify their lifestyles in a variety of ways in order to achieve treatment goals.

Need for a holistic, personalised view of diabetes care

Typically this involves making dietary changes to achieve a healthy balanced diet while increasing activity through adding daily steps and starting an exercise routine.  The exact changes needed will vary from patient to patient and there is certainly no one-size-fits-all approach.

All diabetes medications are indicated to be prescribed in conjunction with lifestyle modification and there is a relationship between medication and lifestyle changes: successful lifestyle modification may well reduce the need for medication - so you can get fitter and save money from your medication bills at the same time!

‍

Avoiding acute blood glucose control problems

Patients with diabetes also need to be careful under certain situations - during periods of sickness, fasting, travel and when starting an exercise programme.  This is to avoid problems of hyper- or hypo-glycaemia (too high or too low blood sugar), which may be more likely at these times.

What is Comprehensive Diabetes Management?

One might well ask the question 'what is complete (or comprehensive) diabetes management?' and 'how can I tell if my diabetes app is providing complete diabetes management?'

These are very important questions since a programme or an app which does not adequately cover all key aspects of diabetes care is unlikely to support best clinical practice.

5 Essential Diabetes Management Functions not uniformly tracked even among the 'best apps for diabetes'

And there are many apps on the market which are lacking in certain areas.  Researchers from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) found that for the 'best diabetes apps' from Google searches, few tracked and monitored all five  management functions which are considered essential for complete diabetes care: blood glucose control, activity, diet, medication and weight.

SugoSure assists delivery of comprehensive, coordinated care based on clinical best practice

In contrast, SugoSure tracks and monitors each of the ‘five essential diabetes management functions’ and provides dashboards, alerts and support to patient, doctor and health coach based on best clinical practice algorithms built into its design.  

1. Blood glucose control is tracked from BG readings which a patient reads from their glucometer and keys into the app
2. Activity is tracked from steps read through Google Fit or Apple Health integrations and exercises done, which are logged by the patient into the app
3. Diet is tracked by food logs which are created by the patient for a representative sample of food that they eat.  This is through a search function with a database of more than 3000 international and local food items  
4. Medication changes are logged by the physician and communicated directly to the patient through the app with clear instructions
5. Weight is entered by the patient into the app when they measure their weight.

Individual Lifestyle Plans are developed for each patient by their health coach based on their clinical needs and ability to comply.  These are part of a patient's overall Care Plan and are discussed and shared with the patient’s physician to ensure a coordinated approach.  Plans include targets for 4 of the 5 areas (excluding medication) e.g. HbA1c targets for BG control, steps and exercise minutes targets for Activity, Calorie limits for Diet and targets for Weight.

Targets are used by the system’s algorithms to highlight trends and generate alerts if the patient is trending off-target.  The patient can then adjust lifestyle, with health coach support to try to get back on track.

This coordinated, comprehensive and data-driven approach is a first for diabetes management and shows that SugoSure is Much More than an App - it is Simply a Better Way to Manage Diabetes.

For more info on how the patient app works, please visit the SugoSure YouTube channel

‍