Pulling together in diabetes care

John Grumitt, vice president of Diabetes UK and chief executive of Changing Health, says digital health innovators can work with big pharma to address medical needs and improve diabetes care, in his Deep Dive:Digital II article focusing on the global diabetes crisis.

The rise of digital healthcare is driving a seismic shift in approaches in pharma, with patient-centricity lying at the heart of new strategies for engagement. Innovators are embracing mobile health technologies, gamification and big data to empower patients to manage their own health, improve clinical outcomes, and enable better disease prevention, as opposed to risk management.

The benefits of supporting individual patients in this way are perhaps the clearest in diabetes care. It’s rapidly becoming one of the biggest drains on healthcare budgets around the world, with a projected 5 million people diagnosed with the condition in the UK alone by 2035. It accounts for almost 10% of total NHS spend – around £10 billion – of which 80% goes on treating preventable complications.

There’s an urgent, unmet need for more effective solutions to enable better management and prevention of the condition.

This situation drove Professor Mike Trenell, a leading academic in the field of lifestyle interventions, and me, to create Changing Health in 2016, as a spin-out from Newcastle University.

From first-hand experience and extensive research, we knew that existing structured diabetes education programmes provided valuable content, but were also inaccessible and poorly marketed.

Our concept was to offer a new way to deliver effective diabetes education at scale, using technology to help support people to make better decisions. Our solution provides evidence-based digital resources with personalised behavioural change support from a professional lifestyle coach using scientifically-proven techniques.

There are three key areas where I believe this solution is unique. Read more in the full article here.

Please note that Deep Dive is best viewed in full-screen mode.

Read the full Deep Dive: Digital II magazine here.

If you would like to read previous editions of Deep Dive, and sign up to receive future editions, please visit the Deep Dive page on the website.

Next edition is Deep Dive: Patient centricity II – publishing in March. Contact us to get involved.