A group of mHealth vendors and advocates have hit upon an ideal – and uniquely European – way to highlight the benefits of mHealth in managing diabetes. They're launch a cycling tour.
Coordinated by the GSMA, an organization spanning more than 220 countries and representing mobile operators around the world, the GSMA mHealth Grand Tour kicked off Thursday at the Autoworld Museum in Brussels, Belgium. Over the next 12 days, six teams of cyclists, all of them living with diabetes, will travel 1,304 miles through several countries in Europe, arriving in Barcelona, Spain on September 18.
“There are 55 million people living with diabetes in Europe, and about 10 percent of the overall EU annual healthcare expenditure is being spent on diabetes,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer of the GSMA, in a press release. “GSMA research, developed in partnership with PwC, has already shown that mHealth can save 5 million people in the EU from being at risk of developing diabetes by 2017. The mHealth Grand Tour will highlight how mobile technology can support diabetes prevention, diagnosis and treatment by increasing the reach and accessibility of healthcare services, cutting the cost of care and minimizing the impact of the illness on people’s lives.”
A key aspect of the cycling tour is the fact that the riders will be equipped with mHealth tools to monitor their blood glucose levels. The Dexcom G5 continuous glucose monitor worn by riders will integrate with bike-mounted computers, transmitting data over the ANT+ protocol to Sony Mobile handsets, which the riders can use to monitor themselves. That information will also be transmitted through an HMM module, part of an Orange solution, to a cloud-based portal. Researchers and medical officials will view the data through a McCann Health portal, and use a geolocation portal provided by Orange to track rider progress.
All technologies involved in the ride will operate on Continue Health standards for interoperability.
"This event will show how practical, end-to-end mHealth solutions can support people with diabetes and other chronic diseases in living an active lifestyle, and help individuals to better track their health and wellness," said Clint McClellan, Continua's board president and chairman, in a separate press release. "Continua is proud to support this important collaboration between the diabetes community, GSMA, and industry leaders, by providing our Interoperability Standards upon which the technology for this ride has been built.
“An important aspect of the event is that some riders have Type 1 diabetes while others do not. Through mHealth technology, we will be able to collect new data on the differences in the effects of endurance exercise between the two groups,” said McClellan, who attended the tour's launch and gave a presentation at GSMA's Mobile 360 Europe conference that same day on remote home monitoring for established health systems. “mHealth could have an important impact on clinical research as well as on self-health management.”
“People living with diabetes can achieve any goal that people without diabetes can achieve,” said Jake Leach, vice president of research and development for Dexcom, in another release. “Complete mHealth solutions, which begin with sensors, provide patient feedback and arrive in the clinician’s inbox, make health goals achievable and safe. The mHealth Grand Tour partners designed the technical solution to be immediately applicable to this kind of clinical setting.”
Michael Trenell, an NHIR Senior Research Fellow and director of the MoveLab at Newcastle University in the UK, will be using the data generated to study the effects of multi-day endurance exercise on blood glucose levels.
“A physically active lifestyle is vital in managing all types of diabetes, and yet there is very little published research on the physiology of how this works,” Trenell said in comments supplied by the GSMA. “The mHealth Grand Tour presents a unique, invaluable opportunity to conduct research using an innovative mHealth application that functions wirelessly, without intrusion into the riders’ performance. By comparing data from the three groups of athletes we hope to gather information that will benefit all people with diabetes and those at risk of diabetes.”
The six teams of cyclists represent some of the biggest names in the mHealth diabetes management community – BG, Etisalat, Fira-Sodexo, the GSMA, Novo Nordisk and u-blox. The tour is presented in a partnership with the International Diabetes Foundation's European region.
Among the other partners in this tour are mHIMSS Europe, Roche, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, A&D Medical, Carmichael Training Systems, the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth, MedTech Europe, the Catalan Diabetes Association, Diabetes Croatia and Diabetes Germany.
