April 3, 2009

Who is SymCare?

Amy T has a post about SymCare on Diabetes Mine. I was trying to post a comment there but I guess she got smart, 'cause as soon as her server saw me coming it took a dive and wouldn't let me post. No dummy that Amy Bennet scares people away. Better have the site go down that have him post. LOL - Love Ya/ Mean It, Amy.

So who is this SymCare in West Chester PA? Were are they in West Chester? I looked for an address. It is no place on their web page. The FDA has an address for Symcare. Same address as Animas'.
SYMCARE PERSONALIZED HEALTH SOLUTIONS, INC
200 lawrence drive
west chester, PA 19380
As for the FDA clearance in the press release, it is "substantially equivalent (SE)... Clinical Chemistry."

inTouch is an old name for a LifeScan software program. Looks like they dusted of a golden oldie, the copyright on this inTouch PDF is 2001.

This time they mention wireless so all the pictures of hooking up you meter to the back of the PC will be replaces with trying to sync wireless.

SymCare was out hiring reps. Google returns a lot of hits for old Job postings. And a few lines in programmers resumes.

SymCare kinda feels like a marketing campaign waiting to happen. Wireless updating of BG to the doctor's office anyone? If it is, Mark has something really smart to say about that.

The first post I wrote for YDMV (back when it was part of another blog) was based on this simple idea that Mark expressed at FFL, "My wife and I are our daughter’s primary care team.” Mark is smart.

Remember what Mark said.

2 comments :

  1. I, for one, am tired of the Minimed bashing on CWD. I wonder if the reason is the customer service is lacking in certain areas of the country? There is the issue with proprietary sets, and I think the fact you cannot buy any set you want stinks, but we use the shorter sils so there was no difference for us. Minimed puts a lot of money into research, more than any other pump company to date. I am not naive enough to think they do this for our benefit, but in the end it will benefit our children with D. We started on the Animas pump, it failed two weeks after buying it. Went through the tortures of the damned getting Animas (this was before J&J acquired them) to send us a new versus a "refurbished" pump. Pumped two years with Animas, had to replace pump three times, plus we bought the upgrade, so count them, four, pumps. Switched to MM for integrated cgms (size of that introducer needle means we no longer use it often). After a year and a half of use, someone (school nurse?) tightened the battery cap and we could not pry it loose. Since our pump was so reliable, we insisted MM fix our pump, then send it back to us, we did not want refurbished, we would wait. MM said they could not do it. I hung up, very annoyed and I let them know it. Five minutes later I get a call back from the MM Rep. and he was authorized by his superior to send us a brand new pump. We called around dinner time Friday night. He overnighted that pump to us by 12 noon Saturday. We went back to our Animas pump in the meantime. Well, although we had never noticed it before, we got mighty tired of all the button pushing on the Animas; had to dial up each bolus, correction. Did like their screen and easy to find IOB on Status 2 But our MM pump has not broken down once (battery cap was human error). Since this pump is her lifeline, and she is a child, I value reliability of product over customer service (which I certainly do not find lacking with MM), calorie king database on pump (never had to use it), and any bell and whistle Animas might offer. I do NOT like Animas's computer program (or lack of it) for downloading the pump and analyzing BS numbers. Carelink is far, far superior, especially when using cgms. The MM does everything I need it to do, with the exception of putting IOB on the screen. I hope we never have to switch again. P.S. Carelink has made a HUGE improvement in her A1cs, even without cgms. This year they were 5.8, 6.1, 6.1 and 6.4 only after a swing of horrendous numbers (she is 12 and has been in puberty for a while, and as far as I can see, it gets worse as a 12 year old). Without Carelink, I usually had
    A1cs in the 6.4 to 6.9 range. With cgms I am sure I could reduce glucose variability and make that a stable A1c at 6.1 with less of a swing in BS, but the computer program has helped me quite a bit.

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  2. There you have it folks,

    YDMV

    I am happy for everyone who finds a path to sanity with diabetes management, alto it sounds a lot like our friend Anonymous here has had their share of going nuts.

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