Tech for Diabetes Management
Diabetes effects about 1 in 10 Americans. Managing diabetes requires knowledge about a wide range of topics including nutrition, exercise, and foot health. We are designing a Diabetes Ubiquitous Computational Sensing Systems (DUCSS) to streamline this information and to make it widely available in a manner that is useful and useable.
GT-Emory AI Humanity Sponsored Research
Representative Papers:
Intelligent Care Management for Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Scoping Review of Computer Vision and Machine Learning Techniques and Applications, Baseman et al., 2023, Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology.
A pilot randomized trial of text-messaging for symptom awareness and diabetes knowledge in adolescents with type 1 diabetesY Han, MS Faulkner, H Fritz, D Fadoju, A Muir, GD Abowd, L Head, ...Journal of Pediatric Nursing 30 (6), 850-861
Varied & bespoke needs of caregivers: Organizing and communicating diabetes care for children in era of DIYAA O'Kane, Y Han, R Arriaga Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 10, 9-12
Addressing Disparities via the Diabetic Ulcer Computational Sensing system (DUCSS), ADA Sponsored Research 2022-2025
A diabetic foot ulcer (DFU), commonly found in the sole of the foot, is an open sore or wound that occurs in about 34% of people with diabetes over their lifetime. DFUs can eventually lead to an amputation. Once there is an amputation, the mortality rate is 70% within 5 years. Diabetes complications such as DFU takes a disproportionate toll on communities of color and poor people. Currently there are no simple technologies to detect changes in wounds; neither are there technologies that help people with diabetes and their caregivers to communicate with the patient's doctors (when foot ulcers become worse). This project will develop a Diabetic Ulcer Computational Sensing System (DUCSS). DUCSS is a mobile phone application that will allow patients, their family and friends and clinicians to track the patient's DFU. The phone application can be used to capture four aspects of foot health: skin, sensation, circulation, and walking gait. The long-term goal is to use DUCCS data to predict new wounds and give patients and doctors a way to understand how to best care for DFU as to avoid serious complications including infections and lower limb amputation.
Co-PIs: Maya Fayfman, MD, Marcos Schecter, MD & Gabriel Santamarina, DPM, AACFAS
Designing Diabetes Mobile Health Technology for and with Community Members in Low-resource Settings GCDTR Sponsored Research 2023-24
Diabetes takes a disproportionate toll on communities of color, which are also likely to have more frequent and severe diabetes complications such as diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). The cost in human suffering also translates to economic burden, with about one-third of all diabetes expenditure being attributed to DFUs, roughly $109 billion annually. This project will gain direct feedback and insights on technology usability from the populations facing the greatest disease burden. Our project bridges key factors that underpin efforts to prevent foot ulcers and amputations: regularly promote patient self-inspection and examination of the at-risk foot, and educate the patient, family, and other community members in language and methods appropriate for their needs and abilities. Further, we will understand the participants' current primary and specialty care engagement so that the final technology design can be incorporated in their health practices. The latter is important so that the final technology design is ecologically valid. We will use a human-centered iterative design approach to meet three aims: 1) Characterize the community’s health care practice and knowledge of diabetes and DFU; 2) Understand the current technology use and usability barriers; 3) Co-design a mobile health application and data collection guidelines for foot health indicators.