Help Us to Improve Diabetes Tools & Services!
How well are the diabetes tools and services now available in the U.S. really serving our patient community?
That’s a really important question, right? And yet historically, no one has asked it.
Think about it: Of all the research done on diabetes care, very little of it asks patients themselves straight-up: What helps you most?
And when did we people with diabetes (PWDs) ever have a channel to communicate directly with the pharma industry, FDA regulators, tech designers and clinicians to tell them what we really want and need?
Well, thanks to social media we have that opportunity now! And DiabetesMine and Beyond Type 1 are encouraging you to be part of the solution by speaking up.
DiabetesMine is a site that began as my personal blog after my diagnosis with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in 2003, and has grown into an established “by patients, for patients” news resource. But we wanted to do more than write articles, so in 2011 we created an initiative called the DiabetesMine Innovation Project, to help elevate the patient voice and push for better tools and care.
One core of the Project is conducting annual surveys where we ask patients to speak up on what’s working, what’s not and why. And then—the important part!—we package those patient sentiments and feed them directly back to the Powers-That-Be: all the top pharma and device companies working in diabetes, FDA regulators, mHealth designers, leading clinicians and other influential experts.
It’s pretty powerful stuff. As an executive from Medtronic recently told us, “We’re always working towards improvements of course, but this (patient input and initiative) has really pushed us to accelerate development and hone in on patient’s real-life needs.”
Our 2017 Patient Voices Survey is open now. It asks the community to rate the effectiveness and provide input on a variety of devices and services—from continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to carb-counting aids to social support programs.
As surveys go, there are a lot of multiple-choice questions. But equally important is our call for written comments explaining your answers, so we can really weave together a narrative about patient needs and desires.
Please be part of the movement by participating in the 2017 DiabetesMine Patient Voices survey.
The information gathered will help manufacturers to better deliver on the promise of diabetes technology and healthcare providers (HCPs) to provide better care.
