Linda Parks Part 3, Digital Health vs Digital Therapeutics

In part 3 of this Exclusive Interview, Linda Parks talks with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed about digital therapeutics and the use of Glooko to help with therapeutic decisions.

Linda Parks, RN, is the director of Clinical Development & Research at Glooko.

Transcript of this video segment:

Freed: So, what’s the difference between digital health and digital therapeutics?

Parks: So, digital health is having that information. Digital therapeutics is now when you take that same information and now you’re able to make therapeutic decisions. And so, case in point, Glooko just had a module that goes through the Glooko App cleared by the FDA and it’s an insulin titration app, so it’s called the Mobile Insulin Dosing System or MIDS. And it’s a module that a physician will write out the treatment plan and put all the parameters around the insulin titration, and then deliver it through the Glooko App to the patient. The patient accepts it and then the insulin titration is automatic. So, Glooko knows what the fasting blood glucose is. Glooko can capture the insulin data. And so, then every three days or every seven days, however many days the physician has decided this titration period should be, the patient will get a notification through their app on their iPhone or Android device and we’ll walk them through the titration. So, it will look at their fasting blood glucose, it will look at their insulin, and then make the decision based on the treatment plan.

Freed: When I first started out, this was back a number of years when we started using software with blood glucose monitors, and I was working with Abbott and their product. And I was working with patients and one of the patients — I was just starting out, so I wanted to make a good impression, so I put together this beautiful report, it was 28 pages. I had reports on the weekends, in the evenings, and pie charts, and linear charts in technicolor, and I put it in this leather binder because I was just so excited. And the doctor happens to walk into the pharmacy and I jumped over the counter and I said, “Doc, doc, you got to see this. Look at this fantastic report.” And he looked at me and he took about two seconds to look at the report, he says, “Are you out of your mind? You know if you want to send me a report, do it on one page. I don’t have time. I’ve got hundreds of patients. This is just too much.” So, how does Glooko, what do their reports look like? Do they condense it? Is it easy for the physicians? Is it limited to the amount of information?

Parks: Now, there’s lots of different ways that you can look at the data. And people look at it for different things; are they trying to change pump settings or are they just trying to see generally, in target or out of target. So, Glooko has probably — I’m trying to think of how many different reports, six, eight, ten reports. But one thing we’ve just recently done is we’ve worked with IDC and we have the AGP report in it. And I think really the hope for that is that does become the standard report that physicians know how to look at or providers know how to look at and be able to analyze the data pretty quickly, because it’s all about saving time, making good decisions, and really efficiently in their busy, busy offices.

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