Diabetes is the fastest growing chronic disease in the world and costs $300B per year in the U.S. alone. Despite tremendous advances and increased access to diabetes technologies like insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems, most people with diabetes are not meeting their health targets making it more likely they will develop significant complications. While high quality diabetes education can improve outcomes, today’s diabetes technology education is outdated, inaccessible to most Americans and very expensive.
A1Control provides diabetes self-management and technology education in a virtual environment where the individual’s specific brand of diabetes technology is built directly into the platform. This simulation education allows users to experience both every day and emergency situations in a safe virtual environment while fostering both foundational diabetes self-management and critical thinking knowledge. The end result is that A1Control customers – diabetes technology companies – are able to improve health outcomes and reduce educational costs, this is a huge benefit to tech companies who want to boost patient engagement and minimize budget spend.
For A1Control it’s not just about educating patients when they adopt new technologies. Rather, A1Control wants to help diabetes technology companies offer customers a total support experience, in which patients receive comprehensive initial and ongoing education tailored to meet their specific needs. All this information can then be communicated back to the patients’ healthcare team for a connected educational experience.
A1Control wanted to stand out in the market by providing a more holistic experience for people with diabetes. They needed to create a platform that was easy and fun for users while at the same time achieved three specific objectives:
To be an effective tool, the digital experience needed to:
The Mobiquity team developed a mobile/web application, allowing for the anywhere, any time access that incorporated AWS Sumerian to provide a virtual environment for interactivity and ease of use. Additional AWS services included:
AWS services also provided the infrastructure to store users’ actions and allowed them to interact on a variety of platforms without losing their progress
A1Control’s platform is designed to support the individual with diabetes as they learn to use their device for everyday content like pump set-up, bolus delivery, and carb counting along with more advanced concepts like exercise management and prevention and treatment of emergency situations. Every action the user takes produces realistic physiologic responses within the platform. Users interact with a Sumerian virtual host, “Christine”, to better understand how to manage their specific diabetes symptoms with their insulin pump. The interaction is “gamified” to track and score progress, keeping patients engaged.