Managing Diabetes
ICW LifeSensor
In the US, 75,000 people die each year from diabetes. Annual medical costs for the condition are skyrocketing due to complications that include heart disease, kidney failure, and amputations. For many people, the impact of diabetes can be effectively mitigated through changes in lifestyle—something that's often easier said than done. The LifeSensor Diabetes Assistant is a Web-based application that helps patients manage their health records, medications, exercise, diet, and more.
The Web-accessible interface allows patients to monitor their records, record daily glucose readings, and document food intake, medication taken, and calories burned.
A Web Tool to Manage a Better Life
Managing diabetes is no small task. It includes monitoring everything from blood pressure and cholesterol levels to foot and eye health, doing regular exercise, and meeting with a team of caregivers from multiple specialties. It's a lot of information to keep up with, and making sense of it can be difficult. Diabetics need ways to manage all the facets of the disease to create better well-being.
Inter Component Ware recognized a need for this kind of management, so they asked frog to help them design a system that would allow information to be portable, traceable, and, most importantly, usable. The result was more than just a health data organizer. It became an online electronic personal-health repository that stores relevant information and uses it to focus on specific problems and measure outcomes. It makes lifestyle recommendations so that people can take more control of their own health. It also allows family and friends to stay engaged and stay supportive.
“The LifeSensor has less to do with information management and more to do with human transformation,”
says Eric Bailey, an associate creative director at frog. “We put the information into a context to give it meaning.” For example, patients can set goals such as “I’m doing this to be at Emily’s graduation.” Bailey observes, “Once we do that the patient can understand and measure his or her progress and make informed decisions.”
Taking Control of Your Health Care
The Web-accessible interface allows patients to monitor their medical records, record daily glucose readings, and document food intake, medication taken, and calories burned. Feedback is instantaneous and simple. For example, forgetting to take your medication results in a red progress bar. Reaching your exercise goal for the day turns another progress bar green. frog found that this kind of feedback is the most effective way to help clients make the lifestyle changes needed to manage diabetes successfully and live longer, happier lives.
