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Patients to have experts at beck and call [DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India)]
[July 05, 2014]

Patients to have experts at beck and call [DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India)]


(DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) "Bangalore: Patients suffering from diabetes are more likely to develop associated health complications, namely high blood pressure, eye-related problems or even gangrene, even resulting to amputation. At times, low blood sugar levels can also lead to death if not taken care of in time. Keeping this in mind, Bangalore based Diabetacare has come out with an 'app' for smart-phone users.



The app, named as "Snap a Meal," helps diabetic patients to be on check round the clock. Speaking to dna on the working of the app, Dr Sanjiv Agarwal, founder and CEO, Diabetacare said, "Once the app is downloaded, one needs to register their mobile number. Post registration and login, your  profile is shown with your name. Clicking on the camera icon, one gets options for meal timings. After selecting the meal option, users must click a picture of the meal they will be having, with the help of a 'snap-it' button. A team of diabetes specialists and nutritionists will track the photo taken on real time basis and evaluate the calorie values with breakups into carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Within 10-15 minutes, the calorie metre gets updated, displaying the number of calories for the particular meal." In addition to the app, Diabetacare has come up with yet another diabetes management device - glucometre data card system. However, this is available for only registered patients. Along with diabetes, the card measures blood pressure of the users, and sends reminders to the patients about their medicines.

"The patient is provided with a glucometre along with a SIM card which acts like a data card. Once the glucometre is used, the data recorded gets transmitted to the database of Diabetacare. Over 30 specialist doctors and 50 diabetes specialist nurses (DSN) working at the back office round the clock will be evaluating on real time basis and will be sending an alert to the patient. This will save lives of the patients in case of low blood sugar, which sometimes could lead to sudden death," he added.


An official from Diabetacare informs, "One of our registered patients, a 45-year-old lady, had checked her sugar level around midnight. The DSN got an alert about her low sugar level count. Following the protocol, the DSN immediately called her and inquired about her health condition. She was suffering from severe headache, giddiness and sweating, following the low sugar level. The DSN advised her to take her medicines accordingly, and by about 2.00 am her sugar level got back to normal." Diabetacare is currently having eight centres in Bangalore, with more centres at Mysore, Kerala and AP to come up in the coming few days.

Live-saving app The app, named as "Snap a Meal," helps diabetic patients to be on check round the clock. Once the app is downloaded, one needs to register their mobile number. Post registration and login, the  profile is shown with the name. Clicking on the camera icon, one gets options for meal timings. After selecting the meal option, users must click a picture of the meal they will be having, with the help of a 'snap-it' button. A team of diabetes specialists will track the photo taken on real time basis and evaluate the calorie values. The calorie metre gets updated, displaying the number of calories " Credit:luna dewan (c) 2014 @ 2014 DILIGENT MEDIA CORPORATION LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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