Glooko, a mobile health company specializing in diabetes, has produced a practical answer to the question of how to make the most of digital health data aggregation tools. It has developed a way to aggregate data from fitness wearables and biometric devices in collaboration with Joslin to help users avoid triggering hypoglycemic events, according to a company statement. It is also reflects a push to de-silo and contextualize data to help patients with chronic conditions better understand how their condition changes in response to their activities, to make their condition easier to manage.
HypoMap will allow users to aggregate data from fitness trackers such as Fitbit, iHealth, Jawbone, Moves, RunKeeper, Strava, and Withings as well as from scales and blood pressure trackers and contrast it with readings from the blood-glucose monitors from which Glooko aggregates data.
Dr. Howard Wolpert, the director of the Joslin Institute of Technology Translation, explained that physical exercise can trigger hypoglycemia in diabetics, but the problem is that the daytime activity will delay the onset until the evening. The “Glooko-Joslin HypoMap system” is intended to help patients figure out their specific activity threshold that will lead to an overnight drop in blood sugar. It will send alerts as patients near their threshold to remind them to adjust their insulin dose or have a snack.
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MobiHealthNews noted that if providers integrate HypoMap into their electronic health records, physicians can set alarms in the EHR to check a patient’s data every few weeks.
Glooko’s CEO Rick Altinger said that in the future, physicians will be able to view patient’s physical activity and automatically adjust insulin prescriptions, according to the statement.
It’s a pretty cool development because although there’s been a lot of excitement over fitness and biometric data aggregation, it’s all dressed up with no almost too many places to go. This is one of first practical applications of this tool.
[Photo from Flickr user juhansonin]
