Macadamian’s diabetes app wins award

GATINEAU, QC – Macadamian, creator of My Diabetes Coach, was awarded Runner Up and $15,000 in the eleventh annual 2017 HITLAB World Cup of Voice-Activated Technology in Diabetes, held late last year. Presented by Novo Nordisk, the international challenges innovators to present original solutions to pressing global healthcare challenges.

“Receiving this award is validation to the enormous potential this solution has to make an impact on youth suffering from type 2 diabetes,” said Timon LeDain (pictured), Macadamian’s director of Internet of Things.

“We knew that leveraging our Hive platform to create My Diabetes Coach would demonstrate how beneficial the use of voice assistants can be in healthcare. We are truly honored to receive this recognition, and it only empowers our resolve to bring this solution to the mainstream.”

Alongside four other finalists out of 146 applicants from 15 countries, Macadamian presented the patent-pending My Diabetes Coach to a panel of industry leaders from Google, Novo Nordisk, and HITLAB at the HITLAB Innovators Summit in New York City.

My Diabetes Coach was second only to Lighthouse, a voice-activated application created by the American Diabetes Association.

The event focused on Type 2 diabetes, a condition affecting over 422 million people worldwide, with each of the finalists creating innovative solutions using voice activated technology. All of the finalists were judged on their solution’s impact, innovation, sustainability, and feasibility.

About My Diabetes Coach

My Diabetes Coach is a unique way to improve the health of youth with type 2 diabetes by creating an intelligent, voice-enabled system – using Amazon’s Alexa – that provides accurate, empathetic, personalized feedback and suggestions based on individual behaviors. Macadamian is collaborating on My Diabetes Coach with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario – Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre’s (CHEO – OCTC) pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Stasia Hadjiyannakis.

Leveraging Macadamian’s Hive software platform, the team is developing a voice-enabled and connected health solution that includes a custom developed mobile application, Amazon Alexa skill (voice enabled application), integration with popular wearables, and a Bluetooth glucometer interface, all of which ties into a patient portal and a database with patient support content.

The solution is being designed to complement and enhance the initiatives of the clinician and members of the patient’s circle of care. Voice interaction and gamification are also being integrated to encourage and reward patients, while providing advice and guidance to those that are struggling.

In youth with type 2 diabetes, blood sugars are affected by nutrition, activity, sleep, stress and prescribed medication, often including insulin injections and day-to-day measurement of blood sugar levels.

Achieving blood-sugar targets for youth with type 2 diabetes is critical to preventing diabetes-related health complications, such as kidney failure, blindness, early heart disease and amputation.

My Diabetes Coach is a unique approach to overcome the barriers of more traditional modes of communication – phone calls and email are now less desirable to youth – by connecting with youth directly using the intelligence of their smartphones or other home systems and introducing peer to peer mentorship opportunities.

This solution is aimed at improving and strengthening the teamwork between clinician, parent and child in diabetes management, and reducing diabetes-related family conflict, which results in better control of blood sugar levels.

In the United States today, 29.1 million people are living with diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes, and about 208,000 people younger than 20 years are living with diagnosed diabetes, according to a study published in April’s New England Journal of Medicine, entitled, “Incidence Trends of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes among Youths, 2002-2012.”

“One of the key challenges in managing diabetes is empowering youth to engage in health behaviors in a supportive way,” says Dr. Stasia Hadjiyannakis, medical director of CHEO – OCTC’s Centre for Healthy Active Living. “Establishing and encouraging good diabetes self-management at an early stage will provide significant benefits to patients over the years by mitigating the risk for diabetes-related health complications.”