Dive Brief:
- Medtech giant Medtronic is partnering with Fitbit to integrate health and activity data for patients with type 2 diabetes as well as their doctors and care teams.
- The collaboration combines Medtronic’s iPro2 myLog app with Fitbit’s automatic activity tracking technology to provide insights on how exercise impacts glucose levels for better management of diabetes.
- Maintaining and tracking glucose levels is critical to diabetes management, and exercise plays an important role, along with proper diet and stress management.
Dive Insight:
Many patients currently track and record their activity manually to share with their physicians. Integrating the iPro2 system with Fitbit’s activity tracker could simplify the chore of tracking exercise for the 29 million people living with type 2 diabetes in the U.S.
“By helping people with diabetes implement lasting lifestyle changes, this partnership underscores our commitment to transforming diabetes care, together, for greater freedom and health,” Laura Stoltenberg, vice president and general manager of non-intensive diabetes therapies at Medtronic, said in a statement.
The jury is still out on how effective wearables and mobile apps are in managing chronic conditions. A study published this week in Health Affairs found that few apps targeting high-need, high-cost populations like diabetics and people with hypertension provide actual incentives for behavior change or guidance based on user-entered information.
Diabetes is Medtronic’s smallest but fastest growing business, with $1.8 billion in fiscal 2016. In September, the FDA approved the company’s MiniMed 670G hybrid closed-loop system—the first automated insulin delivery device for type 1 diabetes.