Newly registered after Type1 & Tech conference

[SimonP]

I enjoyed the conference today, it was nice to chat to people and the talks were interesting (though please more in-depth technical content too next time Diabetes UK! - I have filled in the questionnaire 🙂).

I thought I was already a (lapsed) member here, but apparently I wasn't - I am now.

I look forward to more discussions 🙂

 

[Cherrelle DUK]

Hi SimonP, welcome to the forum.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed the conference! Very useful feedback too as it's always a delicate balance between providing the right information but not too much so as to overwhelm.

We're a friendly bunch so do have a look around and let us know if there's anything we can help you with.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

though please more in-depth technical content too next time Diabetes UK!

Maybe. I thought the talks were about right in their level, but I'm sure there's an audience for more technical talks somewhere or other. (Like some of the ABCDiab videos.) Just depends on persuading the people (speakers, editors, etc.) to make them, which is presumably the difficulty.

But for that conference I thought they felt about right to me: they were all easy to follow but had enough meat in them to make them informative. (Apart from the historical one showing the ghastly primitive things that were used in previous decades. I could do without that kind of thing. It's a reminder of much too much that I'd really rather forget 😉)

 

[SimonP]

I also thought they were at about the right level for a general introduction, I must admit I did rather enjoy the ghastly primitive things video though, having used some of those and it brought back a vivid memory of my very early days with the hot test tubes (I was quite young then!)

There seemed to be a definite emphasis on not needing to keep track of data, which I completely understand, as it's difficult for clinics to analyse and potentially becomes a psychological burden for those doing the tracking (alongside other issues of feeling like you've failed). I don't think this applies to everyone though and I would be very interested in talking about how to use technology to better track what's going on and how to draw conclusions from this (not too quickly was another take-away, don't overcontrol as you may be fitting to noise factors rather than the underlying trends.)

E.g. The following are some random thoughts: Talks about what tools people use to track and analyse their data; What models are available (there are lots in the literature, but some expert insight into how well they work/can be tuned to specific people rather than generic populations); What tools are lacking and thoughts as to where e.g. Diabetes UK could be advocating for more open data (e.g. on-phone open-API notifications of new blood glucose readings from CGM-provider apps, and similarly notifications/APIs to allow access to Diet/Food tracking apps to facilitate 3rd-party development of BG prediction/assistant apps).

There were lots of questions in the chat about e.g. XDrip and similar apps - is a guidance page something Diabetes UK does/would provide to help people? Otherwise I guess a forum post would do the same trick.

Anyway perhaps all of this already exists/has been discussed in the forum, I need to do some exploring 🙂

 

[Bruce Stephens]

What tools are lacking and thoughts as to where e.g. Diabetes UK could be advocating for more open data

I'm sure I have seen DUK (and Partha Kar) mention that concern. I agree completely but I'm not holding my breath for anything to happen.

There seemed to be a definite emphasis on not needing to keep track of data,

I didn't notice that so much as excitement that (specifically) the smart pens make it much easier to track the data.

But perhaps I just didn't notice it; personally, anything that's not really easy for me to record isn't going to get recorded in the long term. (I can cope with making good records for food, BG readings, insulin dosing, but only for about a week.)

There were lots of questions in the chat about e.g. XDrip and similar apps - is a guidance page something Diabetes UK does/would provide to help people? Otherwise I guess a forum post would do the same trick.

There have been threads over the years.

 

[SimonP]

I'm sure I have seen DUK (and Partha Kar) mention that concern. I agree completely but I'm not holding my breath for anything to happen.

Perhaps it won't be immediately effective, but there is a general push towards people owning their own data across platforms, so might as well try. One would also hope that if the NHS (and other medical commissioning groups across the world) saw some value in people having easy access to their data and made this a requirement for their accreditation/recommendation it might make a difference.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but one might as well try. In the meantime reverse engineering and write-your-own open source version it is 🙂

I didn't notice that so much as excitement that (specifically) the smart pens make it much easier to track the data.

I might ask for a smartpen now I know they are a standard thing, not that I think it will make a vast difference but one fewer thing for me to add to XDrip by hand.

But perhaps I just didn't notice it; personally, anything that's not really easy for me to record isn't going to get recorded in the long term. (I can cope with making good records for food, BG readings, insulin dosing, but only for about a week.)

It was the comments, towards the middle of the conference, from one of the consultants about not needing/wanting his patients to come in with reams of data, but rather that he'd ask them how their blood glucose was and see if they knew what was going on or had questions. I may have misremembered/misinterpreted his point.

I must admit I've been logging blood glucose and food data electronically for years (since I had a Libre device), with the goal of investigating predictive modelling algorithms. I've become quite used to doing it, though I now have a massive amount of "legacy" text-based data (I chose an existing app that was good enough as a stop-gap, and I'm still using it but it's still a stop-gap). That data will need to be post-processed to be useful and it would likely be easier to start from scratch with a purpose built database-based app and import the old data once I get round to processing it.

The XDrip+ prediction works well enough that I'm more than happy to input data to that, but the prediction algorithm could be improved and the most useful aspect would be to integrate the logging of more than just carbs (i.e. a full food & exercise diary type app) so I could easily query what happened on the last occasions I ate X food - how much insulin did I take, was I running low/high beforehand, what happened to blood glucose afterwards, etc.

I have started to write things (Android apps), but then get busy with other projects/life and Android moves on (which means when I come back to the code, it generally needs to be updated to meet the new guidance). I must try to knuckle down and get something up and running, though perhaps there are other things out there that people use, which I've not seen, that do a reasonable job - I'll have a search through the appropriate sub-forum (Pumping and Technology I guess) and then post a question.