FTNW: Data Standards

Here are a few quick links that help make the case for data standards, not just for diabetes management but in the larger health context. I particularly like this little comment about standards as "a path out of high-cost, locked proprietary systems in the end-to-end ecosystem."

http://www.cmio.net/index.php?option=com_articles&article=27860&publication=56&view=portals

http://www.technewsdaily.com/biometric-sensor-networks-health-2711/

FTNW: Continua

FTNW for those who don't know but may care, and that is a small small group I am sure, is From The News Wire. My short hand for stuff that may be of interest.


This one is about the Continua Heath Alliance. It is something I keep an eye on as it may be a source of data standardization.

So for my few fellow geeks, here is a link to the latest state of the Alliance bit from Continua.

Zen and the Connected Type 1 Diabetes Devices Don’t Exist

I wish they did. I have a radically different view of the technological future of diabetes care. It isn’t as much a Artificial Pancreas as it is a peace treaty between armies of robotic healthcare devices fighting over our data for their proprietary sales gain.

This treaty would make diabetes data available to, and this is the really radical part here, patients. The data will be presented in ways that would facilitate using all the information to help individuals understand how each little bit represents one of the variables that makes any type of diabetes vary.

The treaty would also facilitate patients picking the equipment and using the every day devices they already use to manage their diabetes. Now that may not sound radical but it is the opposite of what happens now. Our every day devices don’t help manage the whole of life with diabetes as our tools don’t share the little bit of information on our lives that they know. In fact they tend to guard our data as a hostage to the continued use of a given device.

I should talk about what prompted this version of my ongoing diabetes information rant. I have a RSS feed for Continua Health. Continua is, in theory, a means of connecting medical devices. Diabetes has been part of the Continua marketing line from its earliest days. Big diabetes firms are part of the Continua Alliance. Diabetes care keeps popping up in the press stories about Continua. Recently Med Gadget had a post about about a health data router for home heath care devices that said “One can imagine this device as being a central control unit for continuous glucose monitors.”

Not if one has ever used a CGM they can’t. Getting past the hurdle that no CGM is bluetooth enabled or Continua certified why would a CGM user want device with less functionality than the CGM’s own receiver? By less I mean less ability to interact like calibrating the CGM. Why would they want to carry Yet Another Device Already. (YADA)

Insulin users carry something to deliver insulin, a pump YADA, a pen YADA , a syringe YADA. They carry a meter YADA. Increasingly folks wear a CGMs YADA. Being normal every day folks they probably carry a cell phone YADA. It sound like a Seinfeld bit - Yada Yada Yada.

In case anyone is wondering those things for the most part don’t talk to each other very well. The solution isn’t Yet Another Device Already. Sadly the trend is to make for more devices and or less choice. Some may say, ‘Our pump displays meter and even CGM readings.” OK but only if we use the proprietary combination of strip meter, CGM and pump. Notice that the marginally usable food database left the pump and went into the meter with one pump so if you want the food data you gotta now carry YADA. Oh and for fun, to get the data out of any device requires proprietary software, running though a special cable, to a desk top PC, running a old operation system you probably don't use anymore.

The solution is that all the devices need to talk a common language. Continua is right about that part. Then the data can be combined to make something that resembles sense. Meter data by itself only has value in as point in time. CGMs are good at stringing those points in time together and making trends. Knowing the amounts of insulin taken would help make sense of those trends as would what was eaten (and a lot of folks enter that into a bolus wizard on their pump.) The data exist it just needs to play nice. Set the information free! Common language is the start of a treaty.

In a glorious world somehow activity, stress, hormone cycles and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh and a button to just reject freak events would be handy too.

The Continua model is data is collected sent to an electronic health record and via some mysterious process (using YADA above) doctors will have the time and be compensated for looking it over and making recommendations. If that happens, and that is one big ass if, I am sure the doctor will be using some kind of data collection device with logic tools that sift out relevant data and trends.

Why not keep that local? People living with diabetes are there own primary diabetes care giver. Cut the loop short. Get the logic into the users' smart phones. The phone they choose to use not some goofy medial phone.

Artificial pancreas fans are saying OK - why not just make the whole thing automatic? Make it all just work without any patient input. My answer is that there is value in knowing. There is value in being cognizant of the implications of what specific choice and events do to the individual. As in, wow that really work well maybe I should try to do that more often or opps that wasn’t so great how can I avoid doing the same thing again or wholly crap six hours after a really physical work out I crash and burn like the Hindenburg.

More awareness of how one live life is better than less. I think that is true on the purely physiological level and that the physical has a big impaction the emotional and spiritual levels too.

Didget II

We have had the Didget rattling about the house for a while and I haven’t done much with it.

By design.

I opened it up read over the literature and handed it (the meter not the literature) over to Delaney. We laughed at the manual (Particularly the right side up part - Good Friend of the Blog Lorraine explains why in her review of the Didget) and then we watched Top Gear because that is what we do. After the Botswana Special, she played the game and announced it was a lot like Pokemon.

This information meant very little to me. What I know of Pokemon is the sum total this; before blood test strips, there were Pokemon cards all over the house. In fact for all I know there may still be Pokemon cards under the carpet of used strip we call the floor.

Anyway, I intentionally didn’t interact with Delaney as she used the Didget. I was curious to see what her reaction would be.

I think I should preface this next bit with - she is a few days from being a teen. I suspect that she is older than the target market for this meter-game combination.

After the initial, “It is cool!” her comment was, “It is huge.”

It is. Maybe not large enough to have it’s own moon orbiting it but I think it’s gravitational pull effects the tides.

I found it very interesting that when she discovered that the strips worked in the Contour USB she started testing with the USB. Then Connor stuck it in his pocket. Some where in this the Didget fell off the coffee table in the living room and nobody picked it up for a few days where it risked being layered into a geological strata with the strips and Pokemon cards.

My first test was this: Will the Didget hold the interest of an almost teenaged kid in my house?

No.

I think my baby daughter is too old and so experienced with meters that the game and the large meter form factor do not work for her.

So I poked around (get it poked around, diabetes, Pokemon?!? I kill myself with this stuff! - Ok ok you want to kill me too, I’ll knock it off.) I think there is a very distinct market for this thing. Connor was diagnosed at 9. Delaney at 7. We charted and used stickers as rewards for their testing the number of times they were meant to and all kinds of happy smoke blowing stuff like that. Still sticking sharp steel in their fingers got old before it became a habit.

This meter would have been crazy useful in helping build those habits and making the whole crappy newly diagnosed experience a little better - a little more of their world and less of the medical industrial complex's world.

A little then is a lot.

I am way in favor ever little bit.

With that big picture said, time fo I wish that some of the game / bonus parameters were user definable. As in Your Diabetes May Vary so how you would like to use the game interface to reinforce care behaviors may vary too.  Specifically I would like to have control over the target of 4 test per day to reach the bonus points. I would make the magic number a little higher. Say test before each meal two snacks and bedtime for the grand total of 6. Yeah that is a little nit picky but what the heck I am meant pick nits aren’t I?

From what I have read there are other aspects of the Didget ecosystem (stole that ecosystem phrase from Continua) that I hope to investigate in future post. 

Until then I am a fan of what the Didget is trying to do. Specifically demystify the freaking meter, make it common and accessible and encouraging kids to make care behaviors habits in their world.

I am fascinated but not suppressed by my kids’ using the Didget strip in the Contour USB and their little turf war over it. Bayer has stepped up their game in meter design. I love the creativity and kid appeal of the Didget and the adult sophistication of the Contour USB. Good design rocks!

I believe in options and markets that deliver choices to consumers.

If Your Diabetes May Vary so should the tools used to manage it.

Kudos to Bayer for getting that.

For more T1 parental perspectives on the Didget visit my friends and fellow T1 Bloggers:

Lorraine - This is Caleb

Leighann - D-Mom


YDMV DIDGET posts:
http://www.ydmv.net/2010/05/bayer-didget-first-look.html

http://www.ydmv.net/2010/06/didget-ii.html
http://www.ydmv.net/2010/06/didget-iii-to-internet-and-beyond.html

Backward Ho!

When I was a wee lad, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I traveled across the country in a motor home. Yes it was so long ago they weren’t even called recreational vehicles yet. We were in a group with a few other families. My Uncle Jack aka “the Moose” aka “Uncle Moose” was our fearless leader. He may have been one of the aforementioned dinosaurs. (I mean that in a loving old school rocks kinda way.)

We hit all your name brand National Parks and some lesser scenic venues. When it was time to go The Moose would holler, “Backwarrrrrrrd HoooooOoooooo!” Kids would come running and scrabble into their respective vehicles and the caravan pulled out to new adventures. The call was a satire of the old pioneer wagon train movies’ ‘Forward Ho.’ It was always funny because Uncle Jack sold it and the scramble was a spectacle we reveled in producing with him.

The Moose has been leading motor home caravans to your name brand National Parks and lesser scenic venues of the Great Beyond for decades. Yet his call of Backward Ho seems to have taken hold with the purveyors of connected and mobile medical devices.

Sadly they haven’t figured out Uncle Jack was all about the next adventure and was kidding with the backwards bit.

My feed reader tries to keep track of what is news in the medical mobile wireless connectivity world. I want it to find the Holy Grail of diabetes data management - software that is worth using. It would get all the various diabetes toys to play nice at the scenic overlook and come scrambling sharing information at the first call. Here is the kicker the toys should just do it so we don’t have to. Then make some kind of useful suggestions. No Holler needed.

My feeder gives me tons of articles to read. Blood glucose get mentioned a lot of these articles so does the Continua Health Alliance. Alert YDMV readers may notice I have written about Continua before. This week the news is all about how GSMA (a cell phone innards association) is partnering with Continua.

Sounds like progress right? So what does it have to do with The Moose?

Simple, we are going backwards. You know that Health 2.0 bit where health care consumers have a voice? Amy has written aboutHealth 2.0 saying:

“I’ve spoken and written a lot on Health 2.0 myself, and when people ask me what the term means, I usually give them this simple two-part explanation:

1) Health 2.0 is where new, interactive web technology meets a new, more patient-centered approach to healthcare. It’s giving people access to tools and information they never had before, to empower them.

2) It’s about changing the engagement model with healthcare providers, so that “the medical establishment” treats patients more like partners in their own care.

Sadly this not what my reader is telling me. Patients as partners is not part of the mobile e-patient plan. Backward 1.0!

Development is very much a function of trade associations of Big Honking Companies. I once asked Continua, 'Where do patients fit in?'

They said, in essence, the Big Honking Companies employ a lot of people. They want to take care of those people and that is how consumers get represented. Oh and they want to keep their health cost in check so electronic records are awesome. I may be over simplifying a tad but not much.

To all you Big Honking Companies out there, the Holy Grail is about collecting our data and providing us with actionable information to help self manage. Our use of the stuff you see as brands, franchises and annuity streams from consumables is a function of you partnering with us as we self manage.

Forward 2.0

FTNW: DexCom & Continua Boards

DexCom Appoints Nicholas Augustinos as Board Member.

I keep wondering about Continua and the diabetes world. More to wonder about:

From the News Wire -

Source: DexCom, Inc.
On 4:11 pm EST, Monday November 23, 2009

DexCom, Inc. today announced the appointment of Nicholas Augustinos as a member of DexCom’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Augustinos is the Senior Director of the Global Healthcare Solutions business unit at Cisco Systems, Inc., where he leads Cisco’s efforts to develop connected healthcare solutions. Prior to Cisco, Mr. Augustinos was a Partner and Senior Strategic Consulting Expert, Global Health Services, for Computer Sciences Corporation. Previously, Mr. Augustinos served as Vice President of the Care Data Exchange group with CareScience, as Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Healtheon/WebMD, and as Vice President of Administration with CliniShare. “Nick brings more than twenty years of broad-based experience and thought leadership in healthcare. As healthcare delivery and technology evolves and improves, Nick’s vision and experience will help drive DexCom’s future innovations,” said Terry Gregg, President and Chief Executive Officer of DexCom.

Mr. Augustinos also sits on the Board of Directors of Continua Alliance, a non-profit, open industry coalition of healthcare and technology companies collaborating to improve the quality of personal healthcare. The Alliance was founded by Cisco, Intel, Philips, Samsung, Sharp and Kaiser Permanente, among others.

FTNW: Continua on Android

Bluetooth Health Platform Demo on G1 Phone

From the News Wire Here after know as FTNW 'cause I love abreviations! Also then the Twitter link that spawns from the post may make sense - wait that isn't possible if I write the source is it? SNAFU

MindTree Introduces Bluetooth Health Device Solution on Android Platform

October 15, 2009 - Bangalore, INDIA: MindTree Ltd. (NSE: MINDTREE), a global IT Solutions Company and a leading provider of Bluetooth Intellectual Property (IP) solutions, today announced the launch of its Bluetooth health device solution on the Android platform. The solution, which was successfully demonstrated on the Google G1 Android Phone at the Continua Health Alliance Fall Summit held in Boston from October 5-9, 2009, is designed to provide seamless interoperability among personal healthcare devices, thereby empowering individuals to connect with their healthcare administrators real-time.

The Continua device solution consists of MindTree's qualified Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR stack including eL2CAP, Multi-Channel Adaptation Protocol (MCAP) and Health Device Profile (HDP), integrated with IEEE - 11073 layers ported onto the Android platform on a Google G1 developer phone. In the demonstration, the health device solution on Google G1 Android Phone interoperated with a Continua-Certified pulse oximeter from Nonin Medical. The oxygen saturation levels and heart beat readings gathered by the pulse oximeter are transferred wirelessly over Bluetooth to the G1 mobile phone which then displays these readings. The readings can be stored for future reference or as a further application can be uploaded onto the Internet to an Electronic Health Record (EHR).

More See:
http://www.equitybulls.com/admin/news2006/news_det.asp?id=61632

From The News Wire: Continua Demo

Eurotech Unveils New Diabetes Care Management Solution

COLUMBIA, Md., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Eurotech Group, a leading supplier of embedded technologies, products, and systems, announces today the Everyware(TM) Medical Gateway designed to help physicians remotely monitor and adjust the treatment of their diabetes patients. Based on the open standards promoted by the Continua Health Alliance, the Everyware Medical Gateway requires little patient involvement and helps eliminate many of the impediments typically associated with chronic care home monitoring.

The Everyware Medical Gateway is designed to provide robust and reliable data transmission across cellular connectivity from a patient's home to their physician. By receiving electronic readings electronically from patients, the physician has the ability to prescribe modifications in near real-time, a key factor when studies by Continua have shown 19 percent reduction in hospital admissions through home care programs.

"Remote patient monitoring is a key component of emerging smarter healthcare solutions that offer the potential to not only reduce overall health care costs but also to improve patient outcomes," said Karla Norsworthy, Vice President , Software Standards, IBM. "Working with our partners, including Eurotech, IBM is committed to provide complete, easy-to-use solutions that emphasize our commitment to open standards."
...

In conjunction with partners IBM, Roche, A&D Medical, and MDclick, Eurotech is participating in an end-end diabetes care management demonstration at the Continua Health Alliance Fall Summit & Plugfest, October 5(th) to 9(th) in Boston. The conference brings together leaders from across the industry to highlight the latest technologies in remote patient monitoring and open standards.

More at: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eurotech-unveils-new-diabetes-care-management-solution-63745552.html

Start Editorial

a) Like a Doc has the time to be reading the incoming information.
b) The goal is empowering self care not taking the patient out of the picture.
c) "Leaders form accoss the industry..." Hello missing Patients there Dudes - see b) above, see the article in the Atlantic sited a little below this one and for that matter Amy's latest at Diabetes Mine.

End Editorial

Is that the Winds of Change or Smoke Blowning Up My Shorts?

Conitnua Health Care announced 3 new product certifications earlier this month.

Here is part of the press release:

BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Continua Health Alliance, the non-profit, open industry alliance of more than 200 leading health care and technology organizations, today announced the availability of three new Continua Certified™ devices from member companies. These certified products mark an important milestone in the group’s mission to establish a system of interoperable personal connected health solutions.

Later they add:

For the millions of people worldwide coping with diabetes, personal connected health solutions such as the Continua compliant blood glucose meter device reader offer a convenient way to transmit vital information to their care teams. With easy access to accurate, ongoing trend data, care teams can make more informed treatment decisions and intervene more quickly to address potential problems.

What does that mean?

I hope to find someone who can answer some questions about that last bit. I want them to explain it in small simple words a simpleton like me I can understand:

First, What is the plan for diabetes care? That is beyond the two sentence of smoke you are blowing up our collective skirts quoted above. If you are going to address “millions of people world wide” someone should be able to explain what it is you think you going to do for us and have some reasonable details on how it is going to work. You should be reachable by the few of us who will take time to listen to your PR and call your hand. If you not ready to put some cards on the table we can only assume you don't even have a pair of deuces.

Second, does your alliance actually of over 200 do anything for the diabetes community other than issue press releases? As I understand the Continua “ecosystem” it is expected there will be a bunch of gadgets in our homes checking our weight, oxygen levels, blood pressure, glucose and number of partridges in our pear tree (It is one per tree. We get stuck with a dozen of the things every year and it is a measure of our true love that we put up with the dang birds squawking all the time but I digress.) All the happy little sensors will report data to a hub. That hub will then shoot the data off to where ever we choose to send it. Continua has shared a vision that clearly sees sending data to Google and/or Microsoft’s electronic health records. Here the rub, as far as I can tell there is no hub yet. Without a hub it isn’t clear how any of these devices do any thing useful other than allow your 200 companies to pretend they are working towards standards while marketing only proprietary data systems.

Third, try not to make a mountain out of a mole hill. An open industry alliance of more than 200 leading health care and technology organizations that has produced, a scale, a blood pressure cuff, a proprietary IR to USB glucose monitor dongle and two oxygen sensor (apparently without the aforementioned hub) is hardly diorama let alone an ecosystem.

Here is the simple deal. We understand you are trying to make a living - we can respect that. Is it asking too much of you to keep in mind that in our families lives depend on the information our diabetes tool produce?

Maybe some of the 200 of you can start acting like you understand and respect. At least the ones who see our lives as their livelihood.

From The News Wire: Accu-Chek Continua Certified

MobiHealthNews.com reportes that Roche's Accu Chek Pix Device Reader earned Continua certification. Hopefully this is a step towards data standardization.

Diabetes management tools just got a step closer to medical device interoperability.

A few hours after news broke that A&D Medical’s Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure cuff and Bluetooth-enabled weight scale had received Continua Health Alliance’s stamp of interoperability, the organization announced that Roche Diagnostics’ Accu-Chek Smart Pix Device Reader, which currently interfaces with blood glucose meters and insulin pumps to transfer data from the devices to the user’s computer, gained Continua certification for USB connectivity.

The Smart Pix device connects to the computer with a USB cord but it interacts with the medical devices via infrared. Once the data transfers to the computer a report appears in the user’s default Internet browser to be saved later, printed out or simply viewed on screen. Roche says the system helps diabetics make timely and well-informed decisions about day-to-day self-care.

So what the heck is a Smart Pix? Roche's web store says:

With the ACCU-CHEK Smart Pix Device Reader, you can quickly collect data from your ACCU-CHEK blood glucose meter or insulin pump, create easy-to-understand charts to analyze your diabetes management program and act on self-care goals.
By making the most of the valuable data held within your blood glucose meter and insulin pump, you can make timely, well-informed decisions about your day-to-day self-care. These efforts can pay off today as you have more energy and feel your best, and down the road with a reduced risk of long-term diabetes complications. 1

Just set your meter or insulin pump near the reader, and the ACCU-CHEK Smart Pix system does the rest. It's truly plug and play for greater convenience and faster downloads—there's no software installation or special knowledge required. You can set personal targets, time ranges and preferred report styles, and print out reports and graphs to share with your healthcare team.

Download directly to your PC

The ACCU-CHEK Smart Pix Device Reader is compatible with:

ACCU-CHEK Compact Plus blood glucose meter
ACCU-CHEK Aviva blood glucose me
ACCU-CHEK Spirit insulin pump
ACCU-CHEK Advantage blood glucose meter
ACCU-CHEK Compact blood glucose meter
ACCU-CHEK Active blood glucose me
Disetronic D-TRONplus insulin pump
ACCU-CHEK 3600 data management system

I think that means it is a $125 dongle. What it does and what gets the "standardized data" treatment I don't know. Continua's big shot dude told me that there will not be continua standards for pumps until the Continua 2.0 release some time like next summer. So how does this costly IR to USB dongle deal with their pump and what data gets dealt with how?

I'll try to find out more.

Here is some initial things that make me go Hmmm.
- $125 for a an IR dongle. Ouch
- IR? Hello what is with the dongle in a Bluetooth world.
- PC what about MAC, hell what about iPhone.
- What are the reports coming out of a PC app a browser based app?
- What are the reports?
- - (UPDATE looks like sample reports here)

- How does the data standardization of Continua help us share data between our diabetes toys?

Continuing on Continua

Continua maybe the path to standards for the tools used to live with type 1 diabetes. I hope it is.

I do worry about the route they take getting us there - for me Continua has a ‘Health 1.0’ feel about it. Maybe the best way to explain what I mean is by contrast.

I am moved by Amy’s calls for participatory patient care. This week she wrote about patients rights to health data. Amy is the Queen of the web 2.0 diabetes world. Advocating, leading and living the idea that patients have valuable contributions to make in their individual and collective wellness. Sorry I can’t give one specific link for that because she has written so much and so well on the subject. If you want more go click the Health 2.0 link on her banner. I am a True Believer in Amy’s Vision

The point of this 2.0 vision is that patients are critical to shaping their health process. Patient voices need to be heard not only because they are ultimately the consumer but because including patient makes for better health outcomes.

So Health 2.0 is patient participation. Health 1.0 is where the system, fronted by the Kindly Dr. (Fill in your favorite TV Dr’s name here from Dr. Kildare to Dr. House), has the all the answers.

In Continua Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Health are playing the rolls of Drs Kildare Doggie Houser and House. They have the answers. Patients are not part of the process.

It is that lack of patients in the design process where I find Continua Health Alliance being in the 1.0 universe. There is no path for patients participating in defining the standards Continua is setting. I asked Chuck Parker Continua’s Executive Director about this, ‘So the first question that comes to my mind is there a mechanism for patient voices in the standards development process? How do patients and their needs fit into the equation?’

Chuck explained that Intel has done tens of thousands of hours of market research. He said that the member companies of the Continua Alliance employ vast numbers of people. These companies, their experience with their employee’s health care systems and their research represent the patients in the standards process.

Ouch.

Reminds anyone other than me of when Dr. Wellby says this shot won’t hurt a bit?

I think that the Diabetes Mine Design Challenge is a direct result of Big Pharma’s focus being someplace other than patient usability when they engineer the tools we use. I don’t see a track record of consumer product design that suggests Intel going to do any better. Intel’s image is far away from users, deep on the Inside, where the truly user hostile engineering is hidden.

Next I asked Chuck where I could see the format for the data set that will be used for diabetes, specifically pumps and CGMs. My curiosity being simply if there are going to be standards what the heck do they look like. Seriously how can we see that the standards are going to collect the information we need to form intelligent responses?

I concede that I can go way off the deep end on this topic. (Me going off the deep end who would have thought…) I have this strange notion that the next big step in type 1 care is going to come from bringing life’s events into the mix. Stuff like PE class, stress, growth spurts and hormonal events. That kind of information layered with our pump and blood data can maybe form a basis for adjusting type 1 therapy to lives and not the other way around.

I digress, I always digress. Before I digressed the topic was Continua and pump data. Sadly insulin pumps haven’t been worked into the Continua Health Alliance data standards – yet. So the standard can’t be shared - yet.

Chuck did say insulin pump standards are scheduled to be part of the 2.0 release of the Continua Health Alliance standards next summer. He was unable to say if CGM data was going to be part of that next release of the standards.

The next generation of pumps are being designed now. Then they go to the FDA for blessing. Since there will not be pump standards until next year and then the pump companies will need to get them into pumps and those pumps off to FDA for blessings, I don’t see how the type 1 community can expect Continua to be a relevant in pump technology anytime soon.

Maybe the upside here is that 'no time soon means' we can reach out and touch some one, like our vendors who happen to be in the Continua Alliance and let them know we believe in health 2.0.

How convenient there’s a big type 1 gathering in Orlando next week…

Continua Health Alliance

I have written (OK ranted) about standards for diabetes data. In short I want all the tools we use to manage type 1 to play nice together.

Alert YDMV reader KoHo wrote “There is an industry group out called continua connected health that does exactly what you all want.”

Really?

Well yes, really, except it is called Continua Health Alliance.

Since KoHo left that message I have been digging around learning about Continua. It will take a few post to share what I have picked up. Lets start with what they say about themselves:

(Continua is) a non-profit, open industry alliance of the finest healthcare and technology companies in the world joining together in collaboration to improve the quality of personal healthcare.

Our Mission is to establish an eco-system of interoperable personal health systems that empower people & organizations to better manage their health and wellness.

Who are these “finest healthcare and technology companies?” Way too many to list here you can get a get a feel by follow this link. Members of the type 1 community will recognize some of our key vendors including Medtronic, Roche, LifeScan, and Bayer Diabetes Care.

The Association board has members form Intel, Partners Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Roche, Cisco Systems, Medtronic, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Welch Allyn and tallying the Academy’s votes and tabulating the Oscar winners Price Waterhouse Coopers. Ok I was kidding about the Oscars. These companies are some economic big dogs. Good news for YDMV readers, the Roche board dude is from their diabetes care group.

The point I they make plain and I’m getting loud and clear is that these are serious corporate players. Here’s hoping that if the suits play nice, we’ll get tools that do too.

So much for who, how about ‘What are they gonna do for me?’ As I understand it they do a couple of things. First they establish standards on how devices for all kinds of things talk and aggregated information into common data sets. Manufacturer’s will make devices following the standards and submit them for the Continua version of the ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.’ Their efforts are then bifurcated. (Continua’s dude there actually used the word when I spoke with him. I had to stop to go figure out what he was talking about. Apparently is a cool word for split in two I should have known.) Anyway Continua spits its efforts between government and private payers to try to help them see that common standards and preventative tools are a good investment in avoiding more expensive conditions down the road.

How is it gonna work? Imagine having all kinds of devices in your house reporting on your health. Of course if you’re a type 1 household you don’t need to imagine devices they are probably on the coffee table right now. Imagine those meters, CGM, pumps, etc, talking to a central data hub. That hub then share the data in common combined reports.

That sounds really cool.

When is it going to happen? Continua would like you to see that it is happening now. Well OK - there are devices that have earned Continua certification. Exactly two. Both are Nonin Oximeters one is USB the other wireless.

No diabetes toys yet. They can’t say when. Continua does say that they expect additional certifications in the coming weeks and months. Or in other works - stay tuned.