Why relevant experiences are better than good experiences for diabetes decision making

How do you make diabetes decisions?

My daily routine involves research to better understand the lives of people living with diabetes. For me, as someone who doesn’t live with diabetes, it’s essential to try and understand our users in order to keep them safe and provide the best app possible. I came across the following Reddit post recently:

This isn’t the first time I have seen this situation described. Or the second time. Or the tenth time. Probably closer to the hundred and third time. If this is you, you are not alone. Statistics show that between 80% and 92% of people living with diabetes do not achieve the clinically recommended blood glucose outcome targets. To us at Quin, this highlights that the way of treating diabetes needs to change if we want to avoid situations as described above.

If carb counting for a meal alone can’t give you consistent outcomes, what else needs to be considered when deciding how much insulin to take and when? At Quin, we are identifying relevant decisions for our users based on multiple factors from their past and present to provide them with the best outcome in their near future.

What is the best outcome?

Is it returning to a stable 5.5 mmol/l or 100 mg/dl reading? Is it not having a hyper or hypo? Is it not worrying about making ‘the right decision’? Is it a reduction in the stress of having to make so many decisions every day? Is it better time in range? Is it getting back on with life with as little interruption as possible?

The answers will be different for everybody living with diabetes. They may also change depending on the day and situation for each person. The best outcome might even be all of the above along with dozens of other potential outcomes.

But blood glucose is not predictable. With at least 42 factors that can affect your blood glucose, what your body has experienced in the last 24 hours, and the complete unknown of what the rest of your day will bring, there is no ‘right’ decision that can help you perfectly predict blood glucose when dosing insulin.

So, how does Quin help?

Quin is developed to support you in making the best decision around which actions to take in the next hour or two. We know diabetes is not straightforward. No person or technology yet has the data to predict every single element that can affect your blood glucose outcomes.

So blood glucose outcomes for us are an input to the decision and not an outcome to chase.

At Quin, we focus on supporting your near future. We want you in and out of the app as quickly as possible, reducing the stress, anxiety and time around making your next insulin dosage decision. We celebrate your successes with you and support you through the many challenges your day will bring. We want you to find managing diabetes easier and give you more confidence to live your life.

We use machine learning algorithms to analyse the data of multiple factors from your past experience history. We show your food and insulin experiences which are most relevant to your situation now. You combine this with your own expertise and experience of living with diabetes and make your decision. Then, you can go back to living your life knowing you’ve made the best decision you could.

Together, we can ensure that the life outcomes you want are achieved over time. And early, self-reported results from our research programme users are showing that having more confidence and finding the management of diabetes easier is also improving their HbA1c results. So there’s that too.