UC Berkeley

The purpose of developing mobile applications for diabetes is generally to: (1) provide enhanced access to timely information for patients, health care professionals, and researchers; (2) facilitate remote monitoring and diagnosis of patients, often based on information delivered by wearable devices; (3) provide decision support to assist patients in selecting treatment; or (4) deliver timely recommendations for treatment to increase adherence to prescribed therapy. There is a perception that mobile applications can provide meaningful clinical benefits, however, there is only sparse convincing evidence to support this belief at the present time. Compounding this problem is the short life span of digital software, such that if a traditional type of randomized controlled trial is conducted on a product, by the time the study has been designed, approved by an IRB, conducted, and analyzed, the product might have significantly changed to a next generation system. Because of great interest in establishing what are the potential benefits, metrics of success, and appropriate components of mobile applications for diabetes, Diabetes Technology Society and William Sansum Diabetes Center launched the Digital Diabetes Congress, March 7-8, 2017, in San Francisco. This report contains summaries of the meeting's 12 sessions. Each summary was written by the session's moderator who helped develop the session prior to the event and keep it on track during the event. This meeting report presents a summary of how 57 panelists, speakers, and moderators, who are leaders in digital health, see the current and future landscape of digital health tools applied to diabetes.