Remote diabetic monitoring with SIM-enabled glucometer

You are a diabetic on the move, far out of any medical facility. Feeling tired and unwell, you sense an abnormality in your blood sugar levels. 

But that glucometer would only tell you the reading, and nothing more. In tech-savvy Bengaluru, tantalisingly close to be declared India’s diabetes capital, you desperately search for a device that actually talks like a gluco-doctor!

Using Machine to Machine (M2M) embedded cellular technology, a GSM SIM-enabled wireless glucometer promises to do exactly that. The device transmits blood sugar results to a database, where they are constantly monitored by diabetes specialist clinicians. In case of any abnormal blood glucose readings, both the patient and kin receive an alert / call with expert advice.

Besides monitoring glucose, the device also automatically sends blood pressure level data to specialist clinicians (including doctors and nutritionists). Treatment is personalised and adjusted accordingly, with periodic face-to-face visits at the nearest clinic. A pilot project to test the device was launched in Bengaluru in March 2014. About 800 diabetics in the City are currently using the device as part of the trial.

“The more data we have the better able we are to treat the patient. It provides us better insight into the lives of diabetes sufferers. The more attention we pay to a patient, the more likely we are to see regular data,” health startup, Diabetacare founder, Dr Sanjiv Agarwal explained the rationale behind the project.

The device is paired with the back-end clinical servers that connect directly to Diabetacare’s electronic medical record system. Patients and their caregivers could access the records. Diabetacare claimed this remote-monitoring system will help people save time and complications without going to hospitals and waiting for hours to get a checkup.

Diabetacare proposed to have about a lakh international subscribers within the next three years. There are an estimated 100 million diagnosed diabetes sufferers in India, with a further 30 million said to be undiagnosed.