Designing Usable Medical Devices for People with Diabetes
Published: Sep 28, 2008Care to estimate how many people in the United States have diabetes? The National Institutes of Health pegs the number at 23.6 million.1 That’s more than the entire population of Australia or the combined populations of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
About 24% of the cases are undiagnosed, and 12.2 million cases involve people who are 60 years of age or older. Among adults with diagnosed diabetes, 84% take insulin or oral medications to control their blood sugar levels. The cost of providing direct medical care to this population in 2007 was estimated to be $116 billion, when diabetes ranked as the sixth leading cause of death.1
That means billions of interactions—a scary thought when you consider the consequences of use error. Fourteen percent of the 17.9 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes treat their diabetes with insulin (not including oral medications).2 If each of them interacts with a diabetes care device a hypothetical average of 3 times per day, their interactions would total 2.7 billion per year.2 For example, insulin misadministration caused by an erroneous meter reading, incorrect insulin pen setting, or insulin pump programming mistake can lead to hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia; both of which have serious health consequences. Therefore, companies that develop diabetes-related technology must exercise extreme care in design, particularly with regard to user interface design. A good starting point is to consider the ways that diabetes affects human beings’ ability to interact with technology, and then consider the design ramifications.
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