Stumble It!
Insulet Releases New OmniPod Software to Doctors
That new software I previewed a while back for the OmniPod wireless insulin pump system is finally here! For physicians, anyway. But it’s all good. Hear me out:
This week, without a lot of hoopla, Insulet Corp. is rolling out a new software package for use in clinical settings by HCPs (Health Care Providers), called OmniPod Partner. Any patient using the OmniPod can now request that their doctor get hold of this beta program and start printing out blood sugar and dosing records for review by both. The super-fast software allows almost instantaneous downloading of results that can be viewed in up to nine different graphs. It’s a pretty scary amount of information — as much as you could ever hope to record or make sense of, I believe. Check out the sample screen shot published below, plus four more that I have published HERE.
A home version for patients (aka consumers) should be ready for distribution in the next few months, says Tim Brown, Insulet’s Director of Sales Training and Development. Tim, btw, is Type 1 himself for 24 years, and an OmniPod user who was gushing that he recently downloaded 3,100 results in eight seconds with the new software.
“This is guaranteed to be the fastest pump software out there,” he tells me, “and that is big because the biggest complaint with doctors is that some of the pump programs take 10-15 minutes or more to download. They don’t even want to have mess with it in their office, because it takes too much time per patient.”
The new OmniPod Partner program creates a HIPAA-secure file in a database run by Insulet’s technology partner NuMedics. It creates an ongoing record that can be added to at any time.
Meanwhile, the integration with the CoPilot program remains the development path for the consumer version, Brown tells me. “We’re trying to work towards an open platform, one that developers can use to build new functions on if they want to… We don’t want to lock patients into a proprietary system.”
Sounds good, but I’m having a hard time envisioning cross-vendor pump and meter programs, unless they are co-developed and co-marketed. We shall see. In the meantime, I’m calling my endo to get the OP Partner program going at her office asap.
Explore posts in the same categories: OmniPod-ing, Products
I am a 23 year old who was diagnosed 1 year ago with type 1 diabetes. I am now a pod user. I have been on this pump for about 2 months. I went from taking 6 shots a day (Novolog and Lantus) to now changing my pod every 3 days. In the two months I’ve been using the pod my blood sugars are in the normal range for the first time in the year that I have been dealing with diabetes. (Between 90 and 115 usually). I love the freedom that this device gives me. I am pretty active and have always been and giving myself injections with a needle 6 times a day was wreaking havoc on my life. Any time I wasn’t going to be at home, I had to carry my glucometer, strips, needles, and insulin with some sort of cold pack. With the pod I have everything I need right here. I keep strips and a lancet in a zip lock baggie in my purse and the wireless PDM stays on my side relatively out of the way. I usually wear my pod on the front or side of my legs or on my stomach and occasionally on my arm. It’s really light weight and I cannot even tell that it is there most of the time. I would recommend the Omni pod to anyone! The only thing I wish Insulet offered is a way to check your BS levels without having to use strips and a lancet (like the Medtronic Pumps). Maybe one day they will have it! This device has completely helped manage my diabetes and kept so much stress off of me! I LOVE IT!!
Posted by: stephanie | September 7th, 2008 at 10:48 pmI sooooo wish software would analyze bgs using time period tags. Great- I had a 60 and a 159 here in this time slot. But wait! The 60 was before the meal (and after the gym), and the 159 was after. Big difference then. It doesn’t help me to know that both readings occurred between 12-2pm if I can’t tag them and get averages and lists of readings around meal times and exercise.
Posted by: Christine | September 8th, 2008 at 7:19 amI may be in the minority here, but I tried the Omnipod and hated it. The pod was so noticeable, it was quite obvious that I was wearing a bizarre egg-shaped device. I felt that it really compromised my privacy. I also didn’t like the idea of being dependent on a company like Insulet when technical problems arose.
Not to revive this debate, but I still stand by the way I analyze my blood sugar: look at my meter and remember what I did 2 hours ago. If I stared at pie charts and log books I would have less time to a)study and b)exercise, prepare healthy meals, and otherwise manage my blood sugar (latest A1c 5.0).
Posted by: Lauren | September 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm