Today is day three (ish) of the AADE (American Association of Diabetes Educators) Annual Meeting. As you can imagine, there has been a lot of talk about technology. Today I attended a very interesting (and entertaining) session about teaching adults and the use of technology in doing so.
A few minutes ago I read an intriguing article about technology. A man who wears an insulin pump has discovered that it is possible to hack the pump system (see this article http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/wellness/128160618.html) and change the insulin delivery settings. Although I don’t want to be an alarmist, I find this somewhat disconcerting and wonder what others think. I don’t imagine there are too many people sitting around airports waiting for pump wearers to walk by, but you never know.
So back to teaching and technology. Some very good suggestions were made at the session, for using technology when teaching people with diabetes. I heard from at least two diabetes educators, however, that we just don’t have time. We don’t have time to develop the fancy, hi-tech tools, and we don’t have time to incorporate technology into a patient visit.
I think that once we learn how to develop and utilize technology, it becomes more and more simple and straightforward (as does anything, with experience). I’m curious what other thoughts are out there? Do you like to have technology incorporated into your health care appointments? Do you fear hackers if you wear a pump or use a continuous glucose monitoring system?