How Disease Centric Apps are Influencing Healthcare Sector

Diabetes is a serious medical problem that requires constant monitoring on many actions beyond glycemic control. Fields of diabetes management include maintaining adequate lifestyle, self-management education and prevention of diabetic complications. However, keeping track of countless glucose reading, lab tests, medication compliances, insulin dosage, appointments, diets, exercises and various recommendations given by physicians at various levels is the most harassing task. But the advent of smart phones and healthcare apps has simplified this problem. People use them more and more for health purposes and documenting the details electronically. As far as diabetes is concerned, recently conducted a clinical trial revealed that type two diabetes patients who received behavioural coaching through smart phones experienced a greater decrease in their glycated haemoglobin. Most diabetes apps available at various app stores have been working wonderfully in assisting patients with diabetes management. Let us study how apps have been helping diabetics in three major concerning areas.

1. Glucose control – All diabetes related apps available in app stores are capable of tracking glucose lab values. Most of them allow users to mention the time and date of the glucose value. Users can determine the glucose level before and after every meal and physical activity. Another functionality offered by these apps is allowing patients to record glucose level at which they start feeling symptoms of hypo and hyperglycaemia. Few technically advanced apps allow users to enter custom glucose goals and use graphs for observing the fluctuation of glucose level over a period. They also allow the recording of A1C levels.

2. Medication logs – Almost every diabetes app is capable of tracking medication compliance. Patients can keep track of the insulin shots taken, oral medication and all other types of medications prescribed by the physician. Few apps have an instant dropdown list allowing users to enter their record quickly. The "Notes" option in this section allows users to note down any unusual observation, they wish to inform their doctors

3. Food log – Every diabetic is counselled on the kind of diet he/she has to take. They are told about the importance of following a strict diet regime in maintaining a body glucose level. They are also informed about the apps that are capable of keeping track of their diet plans. These apps are competent of recording the diet taken by patient and calculating nutrients accordingly. They can track the quantity of calories, carbohydrates and other vital nutrients, once the patient enters the details of the diet taken by him.

Apart from these, many other miscellaneous features of diabetes apps have the potential to affect the curing process. The "Notes" feature that I mentioned above is available in every section in few technically advanced apps. Users can use them in exporting data for future retrieval, email reports to their physicians, keep track of other vital issues like weight gain, blood pressure, pulse rate etc. Many apps come in two versions i.e. the free version and the paid version. Patients can avail added beneficial advantages with the paid version of any app. They can avail benefits of medications and appointment reminder, broader list of services to use, access to educational references, insulin calculators, and many more.

In the beginning of this article, I mentioned how technology is helping us in making our health services better. Diabetes related apps are just one instance of this technological advancement, as developers from customized health apps development companies have been busy developing apps related to every disease.