5 years mark

Sensotrend published the first launch page for its products on World Diabetes Day, November 14, in 2013. We estimated to launch our service in early 2014. Things have not quite gone as we then thought they would.

This business is really tough. Our peers, other diabetes startups in Finland at the time, were Mendor, Modz, Quattro Folia, and later Femma5. None of them are operational at the moment, we are the only one left. And we’re still waiting to launch our product big time.

Why is that? Where did the other companies fail and why we have struggled so much? Each of the companies can probably best answer for themselves. It seems the simplified version of the problem is that there just is no viable and sustainable business model for self care apps in today’s healthcare industry. We also haven’t seen any of our international counterparts finding the keys to success.

We do see some light at the end of the tunnel, though. A few new companies have risen from the ashes of the failed ones. Glucostratus continues the legacy of Mendor, working with the business model Mendor found to be at least somewhat profitable. People from the core team for Modz are now working with Dottli, a diabetes app that was included in the Top 10 diabetes apps by market share with the most recent Digital Diabetes Care Market report by Research2Guidance. (Yes, the market research company still keeps pushing diabetes as the most promising opportunity in digital health. Each report forecasts the final breakthrough for these apps to be just around the corner.)

The biggest light for Sensotrend came from the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. We recently won an app design competition for the Finnish national PHR, and were awarded a 100 000 euros contract. That’s not enough to really develop and maintain a consumer grade product for a longer term, but when combined with our current revenue and other sources of funding is enough for us to finally bring our product to the wider market.

We see many other very promising signals as well, like how national PHR solutions are being launched on many markets, how big EHR vendors are opening their app stores with clearly defined business models, how mobile PHR solutions like Apple Health and Google Fit keep evolving, and how all the players are converging on a common technical specification, the HL7 FHIR.

We also finally see self care data being used by healthcare organizations on levels beyond just the primary care and patient appointments. This data plays a crucial part when organizations digitise their care paths, when they profile and triage their patients, and when they seek to improve the quality of their care and customer satisfaction. All of that seems to be slowly turning into a business opportunity.

What currently seems even more promising is how big of a buzzword Real World Data currently is for the big pharma companies. We see their interest in the data as a key ingredient in forming a sustainable business models for self care apps.

So, perhaps the final breakthrough for digital health and diabetes apps really is just around the corner. If it is, we feel we’re as ready as we’ll ever be to ride the wave. Even if that time is not just yet, we feel it’s now our turn to contribute big time, and to try and push the industry forward to where we all know it needs to go.

Uploading Medtronic pump data to Carelink with Mac OSX Sierra

I have heard people have had increasing difficulties uploading their data to Carelink.

Some times the site is just slow, for sure, but another thing seems to be the new permissions for Java applets in Safari web browser. In the Sierra version of OSX, Safari hides the "Run in Safe Mode" selection by default. You need to hold the Option key pressed down when selecting the permissions for the Carelink site in order to see it and to toggle it off.

Access the Security settings from Safari -> Preferences, then select the Security tab. Then select Plug-in Settings...

Select Java from the list on the left. Select the Carelink site, and hold the Option key (alt) down when accessing the On/Off selection.

You'll see the Run in Safe Mode selection on the bottom. Just untick it, and you're done.

Let me know in the comments whether you still run into issues with the upload. I'm happy to help you further.

This guide is mainly aimed for people who used to be able to upload their data to Carelink, but can't do it anymore. If you have never uploaded your data, there's some more effort involved. You need to get Java enabled in Safari in the first place. Even then, I hope this guide will be beneficial in assuring people that yes, it really can be done.

MedAngel One Monitoring the Temperature of My Insulins

MedAngel kindly sent me a new kind of a diabetes related gadget to try out, on the condition that I'd share my experiences with it. This gadget keeps me safe by guarding the temperature of my insulins.

I got the device just in time for a trip to the United Arab Emirates. That was just perfect, as I had been thinking of the temperatures. Finland, where I live, is currently quite cool, with temperatures usually below freezing point (0 °C, 32 °F). It's winter time in the UAE too, but it can still get quite hot there.

Extreme temperatures are bad for your insulin

I have had my insulin damaged by temperature a couple of times. I can't directly see it from my insulin, it remains a transparent liquid. I notice it when that liquid loses it's capacity to keep my blood glucose levels down, even when I change the cannula of my insulin pump system, when I dose more and more of it, and my glucose levels still keep rising. When I then finally refill the cartridge of my pump with fresh insulin, and my glucose levels finally start to come down, I know there was something wrong with the old insulin. And when I think back, I recall being outside at a park, for instance, where my pump may have been exposed to direct sunlight (in which case the black device absorbs the heat and becomes warmer than the surrounding air). Or I may have been out in Finnish winter, with temperatures well below freezing point, and some of that cold may have reached my pump, even though I try to protect it.

The insulin I'm carrying in my pump is one concern, and I wish the pump itself would have a thermometer and warn me if it gets too hot or cold. The other concern is with my reserve insulin, the vials I fill my pump cartridges from. When I travel, I need to keep that reserve insulin with me, and I need to protect it from extreme temperatures as well as I guard my pump. But it just may happen that the reserve insulin is in a bag that I leave to the car when stopping for a lunch, and the temperature in the car when I return from the lunch may be quite cold (Finnish winter) or hot (in the UAE, or even in Finland in summer time). Unfortunately, it's quite easy for me to make that error and leave the reserve insulin in the car. Most of my internal processing power when stopping for lunch is targeted to what I'm going to have for lunch, how much insulin I should dose to that, and when.

When something like that happens, I'd like to have a device like MedAngel One, next to the insulin. So far I have been lucky if I have even noticed my error. And even when I have, I haven't had a good idea about whether the insulin has really suffered.

With MedAngel One, I can see what temperature the insulin has been exposed to, and for how long.

Lessons learned

In the UAE, it never gets hot indoors. Every place is air conditioned, very efficiently. And not just indoors. Even bus stops outside are air conditioned, keeping the local atmosphere at the bus stop cool even when the air just a few steps away exceeds the human body temperature (around 37 °C, 100 °F). This lead me to not think about the heat too much.

When driving 2 hours from Abu Dhabi to Dubai on a nice, wide motorway it was really quite comfortable on the driver's seat. However, my luggage in the trunk was positioned so that the reserve insulin inside was on the top, and the top of the luggage was exposed to direct sunlight throughout the drive. Again, a situation I would have paid no attention to without the thermometer next to the insulins. But when I checked the MedAngel app later that day, I noticed the insulins had indeed been exposed to some moderate heat.

I'm a big fan of learning. So next time I'm loading the luggage in the trunk, I know to think of the positioning of the luggage, and of the position of the placement of the insulin within the luggage.

The MedAngel One could have helped me even better, if I had let it. It could have alerted me in real time when the temperature within the luggage started to rise. However, the smartphone app that talks with the thermometer was only available on Android during our trip, and my primary phone was iPhone. I had an Android phone with me too, but during that drive it was packed in the same red luggage, and turned off. So I missed the opportunity to learn how it feels like when a guardian angel warns you before something threatening is about to happen, but I'm sure I'll get to learn that sometime in the future.

Back at home I learned yet another thing. When I unpacked my luggage, I left the small bag with the reserve insulin on a table in our bathroom. I know it's our hottest room, and should be warm to help keep it dry. But I had no idea it was actually warmer than 25 °C, and therefore not a good place to leave my insulin into.

Right now the gadget is in the fridge, guarding the storage temperature of my reserve insulins. The temperature there may drop too low too, as I learn happened with the founder of MedAngel. And there may be a power blackout while I'm away, in which case it will be super nice to be able to check whether that has potentially affected my insulins.

Final words

I really like the device and the app. I had no trouble taking them into use, found every feature I was looking for with ease, and had no problems or hick-ups during use. This is what I call good design.

I know there are some similar products available too, like the Likelle containers with a premium look and price point. But for my preferences just a simple small gadget I can slip in with my reserve insulins works better.

I'm keeping mine, and am considering ordering another one. You can learn more about the device at medangel.co.


Besides getting my own device for free, I have no affiliation or other ties to MedAngel.

Diabetes data platforms need competition

I received the recent news of Diasend and Glooko merger with mixed feelings. My main concern is the openness of the joint platform. Will it be possible for other apps to use the data? Ultimately, will it be possible for people with diabetes to upload their data once to a safe location, and then use the apps and gadgets they choose to make sense of that data in a way that best supports their individual goals?

@smansonsmith Timing is uncertain unfortunately, but an API is part of our plan and we hope to come to an agreement with relevant partners.

— diasend (@diasend) November 22, 2014

Diasend have discussed opening an API for third party applications and developers for some time now. I have assumed they just lacked resources to make it available (although they never explicitly stated they would make that API open for anyone). Glooko, on the other hand, have never made any promises regarding an API. They do refer to a platform, but that's a much more vague term.

In their take on the news, Tidepool state that they don't consider themselves competitors to Diasend and Glooko. In a way, I'm disappointed. Competition is one of the key driving forces of innovation. We definitely do need that in the diabetes data management market. We need companies, nonprofits, and independent developers competing, for instance with the following:

• Who will be the first to build an open platform for all the data people with diabetes need to see together?
• Who will be the first to release a truly universal uploader, supporting all the different hardware we use?
• Who will create the best developer experience, attracting all the best apps to be connected with the platform?
• Who will build the best architecture, combining security and privacy features while enabling easy sharing of data between stakeholders.
• Who will build the best user experience, making it easy to use the above mentioned tools?

We've seen how Nightscout, the open source project lead by independent developers on their free time, has helped commercial vendors bring their products to the market faster. Having the technology out there both validates the need for it and puts pressure on the companies to introduce their own solutions in order to not miss the train. In the case of Nightscout, it also put pressure on the regulator to approve the new commercially available technology in an accelerated procedure.

We do need the same with the diabetes apps ecosystem, with the data management platforms. I do believe that once we see the first platform that really enables upload from the most used glucometers and insulin pumps, and makes that data available for all third party applications, we see a quantum leap of innovation. We see that data actually being used. Used in many ways we currently dream of, and also in ways we cannot yet even imagine. I see the lack of such a platform as the biggest bottleneck of innovation currently.

At Sensotrend, we've from the beginning seen our own offering as a service that runs on Personal Health Record (PHR) platforms. On generic PHRs like Apple's Health and Microsoft's HealthVault, but also on PHRs focused on diabetes. We would really like to see Glooko, Nightscout, and Tidepool becoming such platforms. And we'd like to see them competing on who's the first one!

So long, Sports Tracker

Last week, I had the privilege to attend to the Sports Tracker Innovation Night. The event was targeted to people like me, with a CTO role in startup companies, or something close to that. I went there with great expectations. Is this the moment they finally open their API?

The first time I asked Sports Tracker for an API to access some of the exercise data was at Slush 2013, almost three years ago. I could hear from the answer that many other people and companies had asked for that too, and plans are currently being made for making an API available. I’ve repeated the question occasionally since then, and the answer has always been that the API is being planned, designed, or even built.

During the event, it became somewhat evident that an API is not being built. The presentation I saw (there were several presentations running in parallel) was about digital transformation, but mainly presented ideas on how to market and sell more goods to consumers through digital sales channels. The current owner of the Sports Tracker app is Amer group, the owner of many great brands like Atomic, Patagonia, Salomon, Suunto, Wilson, etc. It’s understood that within the group there’s a lot of know-how on how to market and sell goods.

I’m writing this on my way home from the MyData2016 conference. In the conference, there were numerous presentations on how the society is changing, and many on how consumerism is changing, too. People of today don’t want to be sold to. They want to get personalised experiences matching their values, and they want to be involved in creating value on initiatives and activities that matter to them. I see this as a really welcome development, and really want to believe in it.

Almost all other sports and wellness apps have already understood and are embracing the API ecosystems. When you expose access to data through publicly available interfaces, you no longer need to worry about offering that personalized experience to each and every different user or user group. The data produced by a sports app may be a key ingredient in something more meaningful, like in an athlete learning to train better or a person with chronic illness being able to manage his condition better. But the sports app cannot produce all the value alone. Especially not to both the athlete, and the chronically ill, and the myriads of other people with different needs, life styles and preferences. On the other hand, the value of the data from that app increases exponentially, when combined with data from a nutrition diary, smart scale, and perhaps medical devices.

Today, building an API should not be a big task. The first step for a wellness app would be to integrate with HealthKIT and Google FIT. In case that’s inconvenient for some reason, the app most likely uses and API already, to communicate with a cloud server. Opening that API for third parties requires little more than an OAuth2 implementation, for which there are plenty of implementations available. Of course, there’s the added cost of documentation and support. To get around that, an alternative is to open the API to aggregators, such as Human API, Validic, W2E, or Wellmo. You can even get the aggregator really interested by making an exclusive offer. It would be more limiting to developers wanting to use the data, but at least there would be a way.

Among Sensotrend’s current users, and among the potential users we have interviewed, Sports Tracker seems to be a really popular application. This may be due to it’s long history, and due to Nokia being so dominant in the Finnish handset market at one point in time, and Sports Tracker being the most highly acclaimed sports app at that time, on that platform. We’ve gotten many requests to support Sports Tracker in our app. This far, we have asked those users to be patient, and wait until the API gets released or the app gets integrated to HealthKit and Google FIT.

From today on, we’re changing that message. It’s evident that an API is not coming in any foreseeable future. People who are interested in seeing their data in our service, or in any other service for that matter, should instead select Endomondo, Strava, Runkeeper, Moves, or almost any other app that gets the value of open APIs.

I’m a long time user of Sports Tracker myself, and changing to another app requires some effort. Just selecting the right one from the ones listed above needs some research. However, the longer I keep using Sports Tracker, the more I feel I’m being left out of opportunities to learn, and to use the data in meaningful ways. And the bigger the effort to transfer the data manually to another platform, if I ever choose to.

It’s supposed to be my data. I should be able to use it in the ways I want to.