60 million people in Europe have type 1 or type 2 diabetes. In addition to their medication, those affected must also pay special attention to their diet and exercise. Stress and sleep problems also have a negative impact on diabetes. The diabetes self-management system developed as part of the European research initiative POWER2DM is intended to make everyday life easier for diabetes patients. Interested companies can now further develop the prototype or individual components.

For diabetes patients, the lack of insulin can lead to serious complications, which in turn are associated with high health care costs. One of the main problems is that those in the period between their visits to the doctor face the complex task of independently reconciling nutrition, medication and exercise in order to maintain a stable blood sugar level. The European funding project POWER2DM is intended to support patients here: The development of a self-management system for type 1 and type 2 diabetes simplifies the organization of everyday life with diabetes and thereby prevents complications.

The POWER2DM program consists of two phases:

1. Visit to the doctor: During the consultation, the attending doctor, together with the patient, use POWER2DM for decision-making in order to assess blood sugar control and potential obstacles to diabetes self-management. This is followed by a process of joint decision making to set treatment goals for the patient.
2. Self-management: To achieve the pre-defined goals, patients receive support messages from the POWER2DM app on their smartphone, which remind them of planned tasks and provide feedback on the data entered. Patients can use the POWER2DM web application to update their self-government goals and action plans weekly, review their goal development, and get feedback and tips.

Further Development by Companies

POWER2DM is a medical device that uses secure and personal data storage and secure HL7-based API services. POWER2DM prediction services simulate the effects of treatments with insulin, medication, food and sports activities on individual glucose profiles and thus predict risks for cardiovascular and kidney diseases. The POWER2DM action plan continuously compares the behaviour and measurements of the users with their goals and action plans and always provides supporting information at the right time.

POWER2DM is supported by the European Commission’s H2020 technology research program. The prototype or individual components can now be further developed with interested companies.