Glooko’s software already gives people with diabetes a single place to pool all of the data from their health-tracking devices, and, now, it’s taking a more active role in helping manage their diabetes.
In addition to gathering readings from glucose monitors, insulin pumps, fitness trackers and more, the software will be able to offer guidance for a user’s upcoming bolus doses of insulin. That’s thanks to a partnership with Danish tech maker Hedia that Glooko announced Tuesday and that adds the Hedia Diabetes Assistant and its algorithm-based insulin dosing recommendations into Glooko’s diabetes monitoring platform.
To start, Glooko’s bulked-up app will only be available in Europe, with that regional rollout slated to take place in the final quarter of this year and the first few months of 2024.
Glooko’s platform connects to a wide range of devices—not only those designed to monitor glucose levels and administer insulin, but also fitness wearables and apps from Apple, Fitbit, Strava and more—and compiles all of their readings into a single database.
The resulting compendium of data can be downloaded into reports that users can look over and share with their doctors, and it can also be integrated directly into a user’s electronic health record. The entire platform is designed to improve the way that people with diabetes monitor their health over time, according to Glooko, rather than using their many health-tracking devices only for one-off check-ins.
Hedia, meanwhile, has developed an algorithm that analyzes blood sugar readings as well as activity, food and weight data to suggest bolus doses of insulin—the doses that many people with diabetes must administer before, during or after meals, and which often have to be manually calculated.
After connecting their health-monitoring devices to the app, users select specific foods from Hedia’s catalog, and then the dose calculator uses all of that information to offer up a dosing recommendation that will ideally keep the user within their ideal glucose range.
Adding Hedia’s technology to the Glooko platform therefore adds both an extra function to the app and another automated data point—detailing exact insulin doses throughout the day—to the user’s record.
The combined software and its built-in dosing algorithm could be especially helpful and a “viable alternative” for people who rely on “smart” insulin pens to manually inject multiple doses of both long- and rapid-acting insulin throughout the day, rather than an automated insulin pump, as Glooko CEO Russ Johannesson noted in the announcement, though smart insulin pen connectivity will only be available to European users of the platform.
“This partnership shows how interoperability gives people with diabetes the optimal tools available to ease the management of their condition and enhance health outcomes such as the stability of blood glucose levels,” Johannesson said.