Innovative ICT solution for patient empowerment and self-management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) (DCoach)

Project Title 43

Innovative ICT solution for patient empowerment and self-management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) (DCoach)

BYS Grup

Türkiye

TÜBİTAK

EU

EUREKA programme

COMPLETED

08.02.2019 (Contract date with TÜBİTAK) -

31.03.2021

BYS Grup (TR),

Grupo Pulso (Spain)

D-Coach is a personalized diabetes management solution considering all aspects of care for type 2 patients, conformed by different devices, an App and a Web platform and an intelligent system in charge of running the corresponding algorithms required to achieve the overall solution functionalities. 

d-Coach aims to represent an innovation in terms of the technology used and integrated into the solution, but also in terms of conceptualization as it intends to solve the existing gaps the current diabetes treatment workflows, which are: (1) Person-centred care and self-management support, which will lead to a continued care; (2) Personalised care, which will result in improved treatment adherence and outcomes; (3) Multi-disciplinary care, allowing interaction between the different stakeholders to deliver a more integrated model of care; (4) Early detection, which is critical for glucose control, diabetes management, and complication prevention; (5) Self-help and peer-support, offering the possibility to avoid some relational and behavioural important aspects such as isolation, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, etc.; and (6) Critical points identification and management, to prevent patients’ withdrawal and maintain their motivation and adherence. 

D-Coach will be a new product consisting of a more effective diabetes management solution for T2DM patients, aiming to empower diabetic patients and reduce the incidence of complications and the resources consumed. d-Coach will be confirmed by different devices, an App and a Web platform. Underlying these interfaces and platforms, there will be an intelligent analysis system in charge of running the corresponding algorithms required to achieve the overall solution functionalities, which include: F1. Identification of patients which might be at risk of having or might have T2DM; F2. Enrolment of new users (physicians, patients, informal caregiver and other healthcare specialists); F3. Collection of patient characteristics related to the patient's knowledge, attitude, capability and emotional state; F4. Patient segmentation to offer a personalised care plan, information delivery and communication; F5. Shared Care Plan, which consists on a common electronic entity/document that uses relevant information about the patient’s diabetes to monitor and help manage the disease; F6. Personalised diabetic training, in order to increase the patients’ motivation; F7. Online community platform for patients to identify and engage with peers and communicate about their disease, and for professionals to be able to exchange ideas with colleagues and provide advises to patients; F8. Smart data analytics and intelligent system acting as a Virtual Coach for adjusting patient’s care plan, training

plan and sending alerts, notifications, recommendations to patients or medical doctors. 

Result for the project is the development of d-Coach, an ICT-based solution for managing T2DM with the following modules: 

(F1) Undiagnosed type 2 diabetes patients: by running an algorithmic module that uses patients available existing data or, alternatively, by providing an online risk calculator (FINDRISK questionnaire) for citizens to calculate their risk. 

(F2) Users enrolment: allowing the enrolment of new users: centre administrator, physician / case manager, patients, their informal caregivers and other healthcare specialist professionals. 

(F3) Patient’s level of knowledge: both via electronic questionnaires and ChatBot, certain patient characteristics will be collected related to the patient's knowledge, attitude, capability and emotional/behavioural state towards different topics. 

(F4) Patient segmentation: which will allow to present similar rules and recommendations for patient groups. Centre based clustering methodologies will be used. 

(F5) Diabetes Shared Care Plan: a common electronic document with relevant information about the patient to monitor and help manage the disease, including: (1) Patient clinical information: parameters for assessing the condition will be monitored, which will be obtained manually, from lab tests, through devices such as Lifevit and Nokia Go, through intelligent techniques such as photo recognition, speech patterns or facial recognition. (2) Setting and tracking of personalised goals: regarding targets which diabetic patients strive to achieve. Competitiveness will be introduced. (3) Medication and dosage: entering the prescribed medication and monitoring the intake. (4) Scheduling and reminding events. (5) Recording of issues.  

(F6) Training: The system will propose which aspects the patient needs to be familiarized with. Training topics will be combined with a test for knowledge gain. 

(F7) Community: A platform for diabetic patients to identify and engage with peers and communicate about their disease and, for professionals, to be able to exchange ideas with colleagues and provide advises to patients. In terms of chat, different chat rooms will be created. In terms of forums, different thematic self-help groups will be provided. 

(F8) Virtual coach: A smart data analytics and intelligent system will be acting as a Virtual Coach module, which will be monitoring and delivering personalised information in different formats: Alerts, when there are deviations from pre-set information, monitored parameters or recurrent events; Guidance and recommendations regarding the patient's status; and Notifications, which will be sent for scheduled check-ups, community messages. Additionally, another derived result includes the identification of the diabetes evolution critical points, its predictors and correlation, patterns and possible mitigation actions.