A Diabetes Management Device With an Incentivized Reward Feature to Promote Healthier Patient Behavior

Abstract

The past decade marks the rise of the mobile health revolution; mobile applications (apps) have entered the field of medicine and numerous apps have been developed to manage various diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, lung disease and heart disease. The advent of mHealth is empowering patients to adequately manage their health. Currently, Apple’s AppStore contains over 40 thousand health related apps to assist patients with their chronic conditions, with diabetes management leading. Of these, nine are FDA approved and are considered a medical device. There is a great demand for medical apps to help patients manage their health while following the guidelines of a medical device. This case aims to prototype a medical device by making use of the iPhone to encourage patients with T2DM to develop consistent day-to-day self-care habits to raise medication adherence, healthy eating, weight loss, reduce the advancement of diabetes complications, improve quality of life, advocate favorable lifestyle behaviors, and mitigate diabetes-related emotional distress and fatigue. Simultaneously, users can earn and exchange reward points for retail gift cards.