Adam Brown Part 1, The Future of Diabetes Apps

In part 1 of this Exclusive Interview, Adam Brown talks with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed about ferreting out the latest technology to share with consumers.

Adam Brown, is senior editor and columnist at diaTribe.org, and head of Diabetes Technology & Connected Care at Close Concerns.

Transcript of this video segment:

Freed: This is Steve Freed. We’re here at the American Diabetes Association, 78th Scientific Sessions, and we have a special guest, Adam Brown. And maybe we can start off with, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Brown: Sure. So, I started at my job as a summer intern actually. I live with type 1. And started my job in 2010 as a summer intern at Close Concerns and diaTribe.org. And since then, I’ve joined full-time and have been there ever since, following diabetes technology, writing about it every single day. So, understanding what’s happening in CGM, and pumps, and mobile apps, and automated insulin delivery and software is what I do every single day. And we write for tens of thousands of leaders in diabetes at Close Concerns and then also over a 150,000 people over at diaTribe.org. And our mission is just to make people with diabetes happier, and healthier, and more hopeful, and we do that by curating all the great stuff happening and sharing it with people. And as I said, I lead technology at Close Concerns and I edit and write at diaTribe. And then, about a year ago I published a book, kind of sharing my own personal journey with diabetes and all of the tools I found the most helpful called Bright Spots and Landmines.

Freed: Just out curiosity, when was it published?

Brown: May 2017.

Freed: It’s outdated.

Brown: (Laughs) Not really because it’s focused on food, and mindset, exercise, and sleep, so it’s not actually about technology really, minus a little bit on CGM, which was something I kind of tried to hold myself to that bar; can we write something that will outlast some of the technology?

Freed: I’d be surprised if you’re not wearing a CGM.

Brown: I am wearing a CGM, yeah. I’m on the G6 actually, which has been fun to test.

Freed: Okay. So, you’re technology expert when it comes to diabetes and we know that in the field of diabetes forgetting about technology, just in treatments, that’s changed almost weekly. As far as technology goes I think there were three FDA approvals within the last couple of weeks.

Brown: Yeah, on Thursday actually. There were three.

Freed: And so, it’s changing very rapidly. How do you stay up-to-date with it? I find it kind of difficult, except for coming to obviously ADA but that’s once a year.

Brown: Yeah.

Freed: How do you stay current and learn about the newest and the best?

Brown: Well, it helps that it’s my full-time job and I have a team, two other people who help me on technology. So, I think that’s actually what it takes to follow. And I gave a talk on diabetes apps on Saturday and I commented to the audience, “I think most of this talk would not have existed a year ago.” I mean, that is how quickly it’s changing. And now we’re starting to see pharmaceutical companies like Lilly invest big in diabetes technology. They have their own pump, and hybrid closed loop, and a system for titrading insulin on a phone. So, it’s going to get even crazier in the next year, in two years, and three years. So, the ways we stay up-to-date are we just have as many inputs as possible. We get company press releases. We listen to earnings calls. We test out stuff that we hear about. I mean, literally every channel we can think of and then we try — I mean, the hard part is separating the signal from the noise. So, I always bring it back to like, “Would I use this? I mean, is this going to make my life better?” But I think it’s hard for the average person to keep up with that and so we try to share that kind of stuff in diaTribe.org just giving people a sense of what’s cool, and what’s new, and what’s next. But if people feel overwhelmed about technology, they should, because it’s overwhelming for even those of us who work on that full-time.

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