Personalizing Care in the Shadow of a Virtual Revolution: diaTribe’s First Virtual Musings Under the Moon

By Frida Velcani

At the first panel in The diaTribe Foundation’s virtual series, four leaders in diabetes technology shared insights on personalizing care during COVID-19 and on the future of telemedicine

The diaTribe Foundation hosted its fifth annual Musings Under the Moon gathering virtually – bringing together people with diabetes, healthcare professionals, advocates, and diabetes leaders from all over the world. People tuned in to learn about how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed diabetes management in unprecedented ways. Those who attended found community with one another, staying connected throughout the event through small breakout sessions and a global chat. If you would like to watch a recording of the full panel, click here.

This year, the theme for Musings Under the Moon was “Applying Revelations from COVID-19.” This was the first event of the series and featured an expert panel moderated by Kelly Close, Founder of The diaTribe Foundation. The panel theme was “Personalizing Care in the Shadow of a Virtual Revolution” –expert panelists shared insights on the clinical, behavioral, and technologic shifts created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they also offered their predictions for the future of diabetes care.

Personalizing Care in the Shadow of a Virtual Revolution featured four excellent panelists, moderated by Kelly Close:

• Jeff Dachis, CEO and Founder at OneDrop

• Dr. Mahmood Kazemi, Divisional Vice President of Global Medical and Scientific Affairs & Chief Medical Officer at Abbott

• Dr. Trang Ly, Senior Vice President and Medical Director at Insulet

• Dr. David Price, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Dexcom

Here are some of our favorite quotable quotes from the event!

QUOTABLE QUOTES

On telemedicine and remote coaching:

“I think it’s clear at this point that virtual care is here to stay, and nothing is going to change that. When people are struggling to see a doctor, make an appointment, see a professional in-person, the entire industry has had to change to embrace virtual care and data-driven decisions.” - Jeff Dachis (OneDrop)

“With virtual visits, it’s not just the patient – you can bring a lot of people into the visit. Two divorced parents in different cities could participate.” - David Price (Dexcom)

“I think the key thing is that we [used to] look at a virtual visit as an exception. We would tend to say that you have to come in person, and we’d [only] do virtual for a good reason.” - Mahmood Kazemi (Abbott)

“…We need to think about ongoing virtual care, something that’s not episodic, but something that is a part of the ongoing dialogue between people with diabetes and their healthcare professional.” - Jeff Dachis (OneDrop)

On data-driven diabetes management:

“The ability to have CGM broadly, and increased access (from CMS and hospitals), has brought the ability to use these data and new metrics to the forefront of care. That’s a major development, [and] we’ve been striving for years now to make time in range a new standard.” - Mahmood Kazemi (Abbott)

“We looked at patient data in Glooko and had data from 6,700 patients from January to April, and during the month of April we saw a 3-4% increase in time in range from Omnipod users. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear in our community, so it was a silver lining in all of this quarantine.” - Trang Ly (Insulet)

“I think [data] could be used in alternative settings like long-term care, in the hospital, and with tremendous possibilities throughout floors and labor delivery units. It could help doctors in rural communities leverage the talents of diabetes specialists.” - David Price (Dexcom)

“What I want to highlight here is the data-driven future, which needs to empower people, not patients, to make better decisions about all of the conditions in their lives…If I can empower you to avoid problems before they occur, this is giving people back more time, giving them back their lives.” - Jeff Dachis (OneDrop)

“So much can be done with CGM to guide appropriate lifestyle intervention that can be more effective than pharma at the prediabetes stage. How can we leverage these tools to people that can most benefit and how can we curb the flow of people developing diabetes?” - Mahmood Kazemi (Abbott)

“It is interesting to think about CGM as a movie, you know, where you get BGM as a snapshot. We can see snapshots or a movie of the past, but what’s more interesting is what can I do with the data to predict what’s going to happen [like] advanced collision avoidance for people with diabetes.” - Jeff Dachis (One Drop)

On COVID-19 and the future of diabetes care:

“At Insulet, we develop for the patient. Everything in our innovation and R&D is about improving the life of the person with diabetes. It’s not wholly centered around the clinician, so we’re thinking about how to improve the experience and ease of use and simplicity of the device.” - Trang Ly (Insulet)

“The hospital environment is critical to get CGM into electronic medical records (EMR), and there are significant barriers to doing that now. I hope patients, regulators, and the government can come together to get blood glucose data and CGM data into medical records.” - David Price (Dexcom)

“One of the important things is know your options, be informed, and you're your own best advocate. It's a challenging time for everyone, but don't give into feelings of hopelessness.” - Mahmood Kazemi (Abbott)

“I think that’s one of the things that comes out of this. You have the FDA, CMS, payers, clinicians, diabetes specialists working closer with hospital systems, so it’s coming together within the diabetes community.” - David Price (Dexcom)

“I think reducing stress for families is something we shouldn’t underestimate.” - Trang Ly (Insulet)

“Today 2,700 PWD were diagnosed in the US alone. And the day before that. And the day before that…Let’s look out for everyone with diabetes and their families and realize all of us deserve to do as well as possible.” - Kelly Close (diaTribe)

Thank you to our sponsors for an outstanding event!​