[Diabetes-talk] "If Insulin Pumps Could Talk. (It's in the Works)"

[Everett Gavel]

Haven't been keeping up well, so, sorry if this is 
old news here. But I thought it might provide some 
points of contact to work with on getting this 
done, y'know?

Blessings to Your Efforts,
Everett


If Insulin Pumps Could Talk. (It's in the Works)
By MikeH on January 20, 2015
http://www.diabetesmine.com/2015/01/if-insulin-pumps-could-talk.html

Every day, I look at my insulin pump screen and 
push the buttons to give myself the medication 
that keeps me alive. I'm lucky, because I can see 
what I'm doing. But many can't. And with diabetes, 
I am afraid that someday, I might become one of 
those folks who can't see well enough to use this 
life-sustaining device that I've depended on for 
14+ years now.

Obviously, with diabetes being a major cause of 
creating vision problems, many of us would be 
well-served by talking D-devices - now and in the 
future.

That's why it's exciting to see a project at 
Michigan State University in which a small team of 
student researchers are creating a voice chip that 
can be installed in an insulin pump. At this 
point, the existing prototype uses the Asante Snap 
pump, thanks to that California company being the 
main backer of this research.

Four college seniors at MSU's Department of 
Electrical and Computer Engineering spent the past 
several months developing this solution for the 
visually-impaired with diabetes. As of now, the 
voice chip simply reads off whatever is displayed 
on the pump screen, but in the future they hope to 
have full audio features incorporated. In 
December, the students finished and published a 
57-page report on the project.

If all goes as planned, the MSU student-led team 
hope to publish their research in the Journal of 
Diabetes Science and Technology to help other 
engineers design pumps or other medical devices 
for people with vision disabilities.

"Their proof of concept helped uncover and address 
many design issues that one will face in making 
pumping accessible to the visually impaired," says 
Mark Estes, chief product architect at Asante. "We 
love the project, were glad to support it, are in 
discussion with them on how to keep the ball 
rolling, and most importantly we are very 
impressed by the team's output."





Stephen Blosser at Michigan State

A Call to Action


Surprisingly, the impetus for this project didn't 
come from any PWD (person with diabetes), as there 
aren't any on the research team. The man leading 
the charge is Stephen R Blosser, assistant 
technology specialist at MSU's Resource Center for 
Persons with Disabilities. During his college 
days, he used to volunteer with the state's Bureau 
of Services for Blind Persons and has kept in 
touch with those advocates ever since, so when 
they reached out about the need for more 
accessible devices for people with diabetes, 
Blosser was quick to take action.

He doesn't have any personal connection to 
diabetes, but the stats were hard to argue with, 
he says - approximately 40% of PWDs in the U.S. 
have some form of retinopathy, but as of now the 
insulin pump industry isn't addressing that group.

He gathered four interested students for this 
project, and they reached out to well-known CDE 
Gary Scheiner in Philadelphia, who helped connect 
them with Asante. Here's how Scheiner tells us he 
reacted:

"I loved the concept. That's what society is all 
about: people with special skills/needs doing what 
they can to help others who have their own special 
skills/needs. That way we all benefit from the 
best of the best. I put the team in touch with 
Mark Estes at Asante Solutions, makers of the Snap 
insulin pump. I've had an opportunity to work with 
the developers for virtually every insulin pump 
manufacturer in some capacity, and Asante really 
stands out to me as a company that is adaptive and 
flexible to consumer needs/interests. Despite the 
fact that a project like this probably won't help 
the company's bottom line, Asante is working with 
the student team and making tremendous progress. 
We've never had an insulin pump that meets the 
needs of people with limited vision, and there is 
a significant number of people within the diabetes 
community who have visual impairment and would 
benefit from pump therapy."

Blosser tells us he also reached out to Medtronic 
about doing the same with their Minimed insulin 
pumps, but never received a response from the 
company.

Asante agreed to participate and donated several 
insulin pumps and batteries for the research, as 
well as other tools and tech support to help the 
students understand what was going on inside the 
pump's controller.

"The students did the vast majority of the work," 
Estes tells us. "If there was a pie chart of who 
did what,  you would not be able to see our slice. 
So, they deserve huge props for their work."

The Talking Pump

At the start, the researchers rejected both the 
ideas of adding Braille to the buttons and also 
using Bluetooth to connect the pumps to 
smartphones for the talking component - in part 
because some may not be able to fully feel those 
buttons thanks to loss of fingertip sensation or 
lack of knowledge of Braille, and also because of 
security concerns in sharing patient data via 
smartphone. Instead, they opted to alter the 
buttons by connecting a touchpad sensor to a 
speech chip inside, triggering the speech when the 
button is pushed. So far, the group has come up 
with two possible configurations for the pump 
hardware - one that has the voice feedback built 
in, and a second that would have an add-on speaker 
module.

Blosser also created a colorful case to put the 
pump and add-on speaker inside, for easier use.
By design, the pump would vocalize any 
information - from the button you're pushing, to 
the dosing and carb calculations you enter into 
the device. Blosser says some of the early 
research was limited because they didn't modify 
the pump software, as they were only working to 
make the device accessible. Going forward, the 
team will expand that R&D to address the most 
"universally usable method for operating an 
insulin pump" so that it can vocalize any 
information needed on the device, and could be 
easily adopted by any pump manufacturer.

You can view a quick video demo of the talking 
pump going through some of the basic button-push 
menu screens, with the audio being one of the 
research students who recorded her own voice 
saying all of the commands and functions to give 
it that "human element."

Blosser tells us they hope to finish an operating 
virtual pump by the end of this Spring and then to 
conduct usability tests with blind or 
visually-impaired users this Summer. But the 
timeline depends on funding, he says, and the cost 
could be about $20,000.

"It would be my first priority to make this open 
source for any pump manufacturer or even any 
general medical device designer to adopt. However, 
Asante has sponsored the project thus far and we 
have signed nondisclosure agreements (for their 
pump hardware). They should be given first choice 
of adopting the design, and the option to patent 
any novel ideas," Blosser says. "I feel that most 
of what we will do will not be novel but public 
knowledge and not patentable. But this doesn't 
mean it's not valuable. Our usability and research 
laboratory will probably be the place where the 
most valuable discoveries will be made."

As to how this fits into Asante's pipeline, Estes 
tells us: "While this project is laying the 
foundation for what we hope is broader access for 
all users, there are no immediate plans in terms 
of implementation into production that I can 
share."


Addressing a Blind Spot


Fellow PWD Matthew Deets
We'd bet that many D-Community living with visual 
impairments would be quite excited at the 
possibility of access to a talking pump. In fact, 
one of our past DiabetesMine Design Challenge 
winners who is legally blind did a video a few 
years ago titled "Do Diabetes Technology Companies 
Have a Blind Spot?"

We also chatted with DOC friend Matthew Deets in 
Oregon, who lives with T2D and is on multiple 
daily injections - and happens to be legally 
blind, being born with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia 
(ONH) in both eyes.

"I've always wanted to try pumping, but it's been 
out of the question for me not only because of the 
accessibility issues, but because my insurance 
company really basically doesn't cover pumping or 
CGM," Matthew says. "I have always thought it's 
strange that insulin pump companies have not 
included optional voice adaptation for 
accessibility in their equipment because 
unfortunately complications relating to diabetes 
is one of the leading causes of blindness 
worldwide. I witnessed this firsthand with a 
relative of mine who has been an insulin pump user 
for years, but is losing his eyesight and will 
most likely have to switch to MDI. On most pumps, 
there's really no way for a visually impaired or 
totally blind individual to make their own 
adjustments."

The idea of this talking insulin pump is something 
Matthew says is long overdue and a needed tool, 
and he'd be interested in helping out as much as 
possible.

Blosser says they're very interested in hearing 
from anyone in the D-Community who has thoughts or 
insights to share on this project, or even wants 
to help trial-test some of the developments. He 
says: "This project is a chance for anyone who 
uses a pump to make suggestions for improving its 
operation."

For our part, we definitely hope that Asante 
chooses to take on this incredible research for 
its own device design, and that other device 
makers are able to follow suit.

To learn more about the project, check out the 
details at Asante [link], or reach out to Blosser 
and the research team at Michigan State [link].


This blog post, with links, can be found here:
http://www.diabetesmine.com/2015/01/if-insulin-pumps-could-talk.html