Israeli medical software company DreaMed Diabetes said on Monday it was partnering with Yale New Haven Health System to use artificial intelligence (AI) in monitoring insulin and glucose levels in children with Type 1 diabetes.
Underaged diabetics often find it hard to inject the right doses of insulin to rein in their blood glucose. AI could provide a speedy and simple means of tabulating glucose changes and calculating the necessary dosage.
While Type 2 diabetes patients account for the vast majority of cases, Type 1, or juvenile diabetes, is thought to affect around 600,000 children worldwide.
It is a condition in which the body cannot produce insulin, requiring people with the condition to take artificial insulin to stay alive.
DreaMed's dose-optimisation software will be tested on 100 diabetic children at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, said Jennifer Sherr, a pediatric endocrinologist there.
The subjects will use the system at least every three weeks, "and then we'll see them in clinical follow-up at three months, and again at six months" to assess whether their overall control had improved, she said, noting the follow-ups could be virtual.
The software uses patient data to create recommendations for insulin dose changes, if required.
"Instead of (guidance becoming available in) 20, 30 minutes, it will all end up being five minutes," said DreaMed co-founder and CEO Eran Atlas.
DreaMed, established in 2014, said that while remote medical solutions have grown in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made them a necessity. The company in 2019 received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for its diabetes technology.
"While we have a wealth of data created from devices that our patients use, people often aren't looking at it and making adjustments - especially adolescents and young adults," Sherr said. "This is going to allow us to achieve the goals that we set with our patients ... and also empower them."
Atlas said collaborating with Yale could encourage the complex U.S. health system to adopt AI-based technologies.
The study, he said, would also help in determining a financial return on investment from a health provider's decision to adopt such a platform.
"All of knows this is the future," he said. "But nobody has tackled the way of how the system is going to fund and implement it."
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Dan Williams and Louise Heavens)
