DBm-Health

FAQs

What is DBm-Health?

DBm-Health is a patient-clinician communication system comprising a smartphone application that patients use to record their blood glucose readings, meal types, notes, medication information and request callbacks, and a clinician-facing desktop application that healthcare practitioners use to view this data remotely and take appropriate action as needed.

The systems also enables healthcare practitioners to view a dashboard of their patients, filter patient lists by set criteria, and send messages to their patients.

DBm-Health also helps patients manage their condition by providing a diary and graphical view of blood glucose readings and relevant NHS self-help articles.

Who is DBm-Health intended for?

Anyone aged 16 years and older who needs to monitor their blood glucose levels, including those who are diabetic, pre-diabetic or recognised as at risk of diabetes and require careful monitoring to avoid possible complications.

In particular, DBm-Health is helpful for those patients who are new to insulin treatment and/or need help finding and maintaining the right dosage of medication, or who are not able to effectively self-manage their treatment in a non-acute setting.

DBm-Health can also be used by any patients with diabetes who are shielding in order to reduce their risk of coronavirus infection, or for cancer patients that have pre-existing diabetes or who are at risk of develop diabetes as a result of high dose steroid treatments.

The first clinical use of DBm-Health will be undertaken by a number of NHS Trusts over the coming months to evaluate the health-economic and operational benefits of DBm-Health prior to general release.

How do patients access and use the app?

Patients will be advised when to use the app by their diabetes care team and the app itself is free to download from the Google Play and Apple app stores for convenience.

DBm-Health is an app available for both iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) operating systems. It is designed to be accessed from a mobile phone only (i.e. it is not designed for tablet access).

Patients input blood glucose readings by entering a value taken from a blood glucose measuring device. Depending on the monitoring device, blood glucose readings may be transmitted directly from the patient’s personal glucometer to the app via Bluetooth. Other information including meal tags and comments can be added. The information logged within the DBm-Health app can be shared with a healthcare practitioner.

How does the system help healthcare professionals and diabetes services?

A desktop application enables healthcare professionals to view the blood glucose readings of their patients in near real-time. Patients’ personal and medical details (including medication) can also be viewed and patient lists can be filtered by various criteria. Individual blood glucose readings are displayed in a diary or graphical view, and readings that are outside a patient’s target glycaemic range are clearly displayed. NICE and Diabetes UK guidelines are used as the defaults for the target ranges, and these can be changed at an organisation level.

Clinicians can also see how much medication a patient has taken with a meal, read notes submitted by the patient to inform the blood glucose reading, record and edit which medications and dosage the patient is taking, and record the readings schedule per patient – i.e. the number of BG readings a patient should be doing per day and per week.

They can also send in-app or SMS messages to their patients with advice and recommendations or reminder messages i.e. if too few readings have been received.

How will DBm-Health help the NHS during and after the pandemic?

DBm-Health can help to limit hospital visits by providing blood glucose readings and other patient information which can be viewed remotely by clinicians and support decision-making.

After the pandemic, it is intended that DBm-Health will support the self-monitoring of blood glucose in a safe and cost-effective way and reduce the burden on face-to-face service provision.

What are the main features of the app?

Patients use the DBm-Health app to record blood glucose readings taken from a measuring device, add meal times, meal details and comments. Patients can then review a history of their readings which are displayed as a list or chart, read messages from their care team and request a callback from their care team in case of concerns.

The app shows messages to patients from their health care team. Patients may also receive SMS text messages if they have given permission for this. Patients can also request a callback from their health care team through the app.

How much does DBm-Health cost?

The app is free for patients. Pricing is available for Trusts on application.

Please contact us if you would like more details on pricing.

Does DBm-Health store any patient sensitive data?

DBm-Health stores patient demographic data, medication details, blood glucose readings and meal details. This data is stored in a Microsoft Azure UK cloud instance and can only be accessed by authorised Trust users. Sensyne Health employees will only be able to access this data in specific and authorised scenarios as detailed in the company’s Quality Management System.

What is the background to the development of DBm-Health?

DBm-Health follows the Company’s highly successful award-winning product for diabetes in pregnancy; GDm-Health which has now achieved a market share of 47% across the UK’s National Health Service. As consequence of the success of GDm-Health and clear clinical demand, the Company has accelerated it plans to diversify the GDm-Health system and clinician/patient interface for use for other patient groups.

Is there evidence to support the use of digital technologies for the management of blood glucose levels?

In the UK, NICE have proposed to review of their guidelines for management of Type1 and Type 2 diabetes in adults and children (NG17, 18 and 28) to reflect new evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of telemedicine, telemonitoring, smartphone applications and digital platforms in the clinical management and self-management of diabetes.

NICE review of the available literature reported telemedicine interventions such as remote monitoring devices linked to clinicians for review, online education platforms and teleconference sessions were all associated with significantly reduce HbA1c levels. Evidence was also identified to support the use of a smartphone application to enhance self-monitoring (1).

Further, a 2018 meta-analysis of 23 randomised control trials comparing the effects of digital interventions with usual care concluded ‘that participation in digital interventions, particularly web-based interventions, favourably influencesHbA1c levels among patients with poorly controlled Type 2 diabetes’. (2)

Does DBm-Health provide a patient diagnosis?

DBm-Health is not a diagnostic tool and cannot provide a patient diagnosis. However, information communicated through the DBm-Health app may inform diagnostic decisions that are ultimately the sole responsibility of the qualified physician using the platform.

Who can see the data entered into DBm-Health?

Data is shared with the healthcare practitioners providing care. Only authorised people can see patient data. Sensyne Health have built the app but we will not access any personal data unless instructed to do so by NHS staff. In these cases, we specifically ask for permission according to GDPR and DataProtection Act 2018. We may use fully anonymised data for our research and to improve the product. Our academic partners may assist us in this research – the data they will have access to, to analyse, will be anonymous. We never contact patients directly or market anything to them.

What does anonymised data mean?

"Anonymous information" is defined in Recital 26 of the GDPR which defines the principles of data protection that should apply to any information concerning an identified or identifiable natural person. "Anonymisation" refers to the process of removing personal identifiers (directly and indirectly) that may lead to an individual being identified from that information or combined together with other information.

How do you protect personal and healthcare data?

We protect the data stored in DBm-Health in a number of ways:

Sensyne Health conform to data protection legislation.
All data is always encrypted (whether at rest or in transit).
Patient Identifiable Data i.e. data which can identify an individual iskept separate to operational data i.e. your blood glucose readings
We continuously monitor the system to protect against any data breaches
Only authorised users can use the desktop application. Users are authorised by healthcare practitioners.

Who can patients contact with questions about their data?

Patients should contact their hospital and care team initially. If you have any questions for Sensyne Health please contact our dedicated data protection officer by sending an email to dpo@sensynehealth.com

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Self-monitoring of blood glucose levels

DBm-Health is a patient to clinician system that helps health care professionals manage patients with diabetes or at risk of diabetes, and promotes self-care.

The need for safe remote monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic

Free smartphone app

Clinician's desktop app

Self-monitoring for patients

DBm-Health is intended for adult patients with, or at risk of diabetes needing frequent blood glucose monitoring, including:

Benefits

Patient communication

Increased service capacity

Improved adherence

Improved reliability

Faster audit

Support for self-monitoring

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