SMARTDIAB: a communication and information technology approach for the intelligent monitoring, management and follow-up of type 1 diabetes patients.

SMARTDIAB is a platform designed to support the monitoring management and treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus T1DM by combining state of the art approaches in the fields of database DB technologies communications simulation algorithms and data mining SMARTDIAB consists mainly of two units 1 the patient unit PU and 2 the patient management unit PMU which communicate with each other for data exchange The PMU can be accessed by the PU through the internet using devices such as PCs laptops with direct internet access or mobile phones via a Wi Fi General Packet Radio Service access network The PU consists of an insulin pump for subcutaneous insulin infusion to the patient and a continuous glucose measurement system The aforementioned devices running a user friendly application gather patient s related information and transmit it to the PMU The PMU consists of a diabetes data management system DDMS a decision support system DSS that provides risk assessment for long term diabetes complications and an insulin infusion advisory system IIAS which reside on a Web server The DDMS can be accessed from both medical personnel and patients with appropriate security access rights and front end interfaces The DDMS apart from being used for data storage retrieval provides also advanced tools for the intelligent processing of the patient s data supporting the physician in decision making regarding the patient s treatment The IIAS is used to close the loop between the insulin pump and the continuous glucose monitoring system by providing the pump with the appropriate insulin infusion rate in order to keep the patient s glucose levels within predefined limits The pilot version of the SMARTDIAB has already been implemented while the platform s evaluation in clinical environment is being in progress