Automating insulin — continuous innovation for people with diabetes
With automated insulin dosing, we intend to demonstrate Tidepool’s commitment to connectivity, convenience, and continuous improvement.
What is automated insulin dosing?
“Automated insulin dosing” is the term for an advanced sensor-enabled insulin pump system with three key parts. A CGM sensor sends information about your glucose through a “controller,” which is a process or set of instructions using advanced math to solve a task. The controller calculates how to automatically adjust your insulin in an effort to reduce your highs and lows and sends a command to your insulin pump to change how much insulin is being delivered.
Though it was once referred to as an “artificial pancreas,” automated insulin dosing does not involve an implanted device and is not a biological cure for diabetes. In recent years, many people with diabetes have been using insulin automation to help them manage their diabetes.
Interoperability
Imagine a world where anyone with diabetes and a smartphone might access the latest innovations coming from medtech, with the flexibility to choose the component pieces to which they have the greatest access or the components that they believe provide the reduction of burden they’re searching for. That’s the promise of interoperability.
The US FDA has created new pathways for components (and the companies that make them) to work together so that users might one day have more choices in the systems they use. They’ve determined three types of components and a regulatory pathway for each:
ACE Pump
“alternate controller-enabled pump”
What that means: the pump is designed to be able to work safely with more than one type of algorithm that adjusts insulin
iAGC
“interoperable automated glycemic controller”
What that means: The algorithm (computing logic) has been designed to communicate with other compatible diabetes device components in a modular system.
iCGM
“integrated continuous glucose monitor”
What that means: the CGM system meets FDA’s criteria for accuracy and safety for dosing insulin
Tidepool Loop
Built on the extraordinary foundation of the do-it-yourself diabetes community’s original Loop app, Tidepool Loop is a cutting edge user-led innovation borne from the #WeAreNotWaiting community of innovators with the support of best-in-class medical device partners.
