About our project
Short Summary
My name is Simon Carter, and I’ve had Type 1 (insulin dependant) diabetes for 24 years. My 9-year old daughter has Type 1 as well.
Basically I know what it means to live with diabetes on a daily basis.
I also know how parents of kids with diabetes struggle to ensure their kids are safe at school, and how they worry EVERY SINGLE NIGHT about whether their child will be ALIVE in the morning.
Now the ‘gold standard’ of diabetes care is an $5000 insulin pump. But the dose calculations and tracking of ‘insulin remaining’ can be done with a Smart Phone app – saving $5000 – but this is just part of what we want to achieve. In addition, we have developed a world first method of PREDICTING dangerous low blood sugars hours ahead of time. This helps to keep kids safe overnight, and saves another $5000 for a CGM, or Continuous Glucose Monitor, not to mention the ongoing costs of these (over $1000 per year each).
Being able to predict blood sugar levels ahead of time helps people with diabetes stay safe – whether it be driving, going out with mates, facing customers, or having a sleep-over at a friends house. With predictions, it’s easy for ManageBGL to recommend adjustments to today’s doses so that tomorrow’s doses are more accurate, rather than waiting 3-6 months for the next doctor visit.
We also provide, for the first time, INSTANT SHARING of everything – blood sugars, insulin and carbs – as well as predictions, making it far easier for everyone from grandparents to teachers to manage diabetic kids properly, as they go from home to school to home, from parent to parent in co-parenting relationships, and to temporary carers like sports coaches and after-school activities.
We already have a proof of concept website, help us to create offline apps that work even when the phone has no network connection!
Real Life Examples
ManageBGL’s first prediction was that I would have a hypo (low blood sugar) while shopping at Ikea. I ignored the warning. But three hours later, and within five minutes of the actual prediction, I was in Ikea’s maze-like market hall, trying to find some sugar whilst in a daze. Not ideal.
I have also called my daughter’s school to whip her out of the pool, because at work I could see a severe hypo was predicted. She was 30 mg (1.7 mmol) when they pulled her out of the pool. The school now uses the system.
Now we don’t expect ManageBGL’s predictions to be perfect – there’s just too many variables. However, the predictions give an extremely good guide as to what is going to happen, which way blood sugar is trending, the effect of eating patterns, multiple overlapping insulins (both bolus and basal insulins), different food GI factors, multiple levels of sport, even alcohol! Nothing has ever predicted before.
What We Need & What You Get
All the features we describe here are already done. Currently, the ManageBGL website is only available on phones with an internet connection – but it needs to work in planes, overseas and out of coverage areas, such as in buildings.
We need $30,000 to make medical-grade native apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod) AND Android that beautiful, fast, easy-to-use, and patient-centric, not doctor-centric, which will work both online and offline.
This awesome native app for iOS or Android will give you:
- Dose calculation (like a pump), with fat and protein too
- Precision tracking of insulin remaining (better than a pump)
- Prediction of blood sugars for the next 8 hours, giving you confidence when sleeping, going out etc
- Suggestions for dose changes (that are not phrased in legal-ese)
- Instant sharing of ALL data from school to work/home or to any number of carers (Pull, not Push – it doesn’t badger everyone with your numbers)
- Handles families with multiple people with diabetes easily
- Points! The most comprehensive points system ever designed to help track your progress. Parents can convert points to financial rewards, iTunes vouchers, or whatever makes sense to their family
- Log everything. 38 different logs, from blood sugars, insulin, carbs, eye tests, 3 different levels of exercise, stress, illness etc
- Integrate data from 60 different meters, pumps and CGMS devices
- Extensive food database for new foods
- Integration of information from Personal Health Devices like Fitbit, JawBone, FuelBand, Shine, TicTrak, FitBit, Validic and more
- Reporting and more.
See our extension goals below to see what else we need – such as funds for quality management systems needed for this kind of intense software development.
If we don’t reach our entire goal, we will develop the apps first, and apply quality, compliance and clinical trials progressively
You can choose how you’d like to support us – from a Founder listing, a discounted ManageBGL account and more!
Be the first person at work with our limited edition ‘Duck Fiabetes’/ManageBGL mug!
(This is not a typo! Swap the initial letters)
The Impact
Diabetes affects 382 million people worldwide. As an app, ManageBGL will deliver similar health outcomes to an $5000 insulin pump and $5000 CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) but at exceptionally low cost – worldwide, not just to first-world countries.
e.g. In Russia only two blood tests can be performed per day. Now people with diabetes can perform strategic blood testing, with predictions filling in the gaps.
With the ManageBGL app and our prediction system, we can maximize the time that a person’s blood sugars spend ‘in-range’, reducing nasty long term complications like blindness, kidney failure, amputation and stroke, and the huge public health costs associated with these, which we all end up paying for.
ManageBGL gives people with diabetes confidence to sleep at night with a much higher certainty that they will be alive in the morning.
ManageBGL is also very useful for people who are not aware when their blood sugar is low – hypoglycaemic unawareness
One in twenty diabetics under the age of 40 who die in their sleep die of an unknown cause. Low blood sugar is suspected (ie insulin overdose), but is hard to prove because blood sugar drops after death. We reduce this risk.
Testimonials
Apart from Lucy and myself, ManageBGL is already helping over 1000 others!
I am very insulin resistant and suffer with type 2 diabetes. I also have diabetic macular edema. If is very important for me to maintain a very tight control on my numbers in order to help save my sight. As a result, I am aggressively treating my diabetes with insulin. Before this program, I had no way to predict the impact of insulin and food on my blood glucose levels. I suffered many lows (30’s in the US) and Highs also. These changed with the time of day and I could not manage the math to keep up with how my body was changing to the sensitivity of the insulin. This program is fantastic. I am able to predict highs & lows, and adjust my sensitivity based on time of day. The history and notes in this program help track the patterns needed to aggressively manage diabetes. It is awesome and should be in all the doctor office recommendations. I am so thankful for the author and the fact that the internet allowed me to find this software. I am lowering my A1C and aggressively fighting this disease everyday – Cindy Coates Hickory, North Carolina USA
Bob is an insulin dependent diabetic – LADA version. And we are both very interested in anything that would make hypos easier to avoid. We’ve seen enough of the interior of hospital emergency department!"
Expertise
I’ve had Type 1 diabetes for 24 years, and am the parent of a child with Type 1 diabetes, diagnosed at age 2 (now 9). I understand the difficulties schools and carers have, and ManageBGL is designed to address these
I have an Honours degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I am the software architect and CEO of DataMystic; we have spent the last 14 years producing tools for data conversion, data mining and analytics, as well as building and operating websites with huge numbers of users (DownloadPipe), customer billing systems for major energy retailers, and data warehouses for pharmaceutical companies.
As a person with diabetes, and the parent of a child with diabetes, I understand what patients want – which can be quite different to what doctors want. Diabetes is perhaps the only disease where the doctor prescribes a drug, but doesn’t specify how much to have or when to take it. ManageBGL puts these tools in the hands of the patient for the first time, and empowers them to improve their life in a way no doctor can.
Awards
December – presented ManageBGL to doctors at the World Diabetes Congress in Melbourne. Doctors arrived saying ‘I don’t believe you can predict’, and left saying ‘that is a Really Clever Idea’.
November – won selection to attend the 2013 Diabetes Mine innovation congress at Stanford University, CA.
August – invited to join the Melbourne chapter of SLP – Startup Leadership Program – an entrepreneur group.
Extension Goals
With your help we can extend our goals!
We will also use a Government grant to magnify your generous donations to help us with:
Quality management systems ($16,000). Medical device software must be built to a much higher standard than normal software, as the impact of mistakes is much higher. There are world-best practices that must be followed, ISO13485 to name just one.
Regulatory approval ($10,000) – FDA, TGA (our local authority in Australia), all require registration fees for medical device software. This also ensures that there are feedback mechanism from customers to ensure any problems in the market are ironed out as soon as possible.
Clinical trials ($100,000) – doctors need an evidence base before they will support any new solution.
Delivery Date
We expect to have an early-stage minimal feature app available for both iOS and Android in early April, and we will add features progressively with projected completion by 1 June.
Questions and Answers
Are you taking orders internationally?
Due to worldwide interest we have included international shipping!
Which phones will ManageBGL support?
We will have BOTH an iPhone app and Android app web dashboard at launch.
Is my data safe?
We already use https encryption for the ManageBGL website, and we are currently implementing a HIPAA/HiTech compliance program that will ensure all personal health data is protected to the fullest extent possible.
Other questions?
Please email us at crowd@ManageBGL.com
Other Ways You Can Help
Everyone knows a diabetic (or two!):
Please tell everyone you know – diabetics and non-diabetics alike – help us to get the word out and make some noise about our campaign!
We need help getting funding and a clinician/researcher for a clinical trial. Can you help us?
And please remember to use the share tools at the top!
Yours very truly,
Simon and Lucy Carter
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Have a question?
If the info above does not help, you can ask the project creator directly.
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