Savvy Update 3/4/19: Alertgy CGM, History of CGM, Stop Calling Physicians as ‘Dr.’

Alertgy’s Non-Invasive CGM Wristband was reported by Martin Hensel on InsulinNation.com, February 2019. The Alertgy GM is a band that you wear around your wrist that works with an app on your smartphone to measure your blood sugar.

The Alertgy wristband acts as a miniature MRI but instead of your whole body going into the MRI, your wrist is inside an RF field. The low power field is focused to provide enough signal to accurately measure blood glucose levels in the body. Blood, fat, and muscle each have different dielectric properties and signatures in the field. Glucose within the body has its own very specific dielectric signature and the change in that signature can be used to accurately determine blood glucose levels.

What are the features?

Lancet free and pain-free
Alerts you or a loved one if blood sugar drops too low or goes too high.
Convenient and discreet
Cost-effective: No supplies and strips to pay for, just the device.
Allows you to track how you are doing with your blood sugar. You are able to better understand your patterns and use that information to better control your blood sugar. You can share this data with your healthcare provider.

When will it be available?

Our goal is to have the device available for purchase no later than 2020. The technology works and we are currently building a prototype. The Alertgy team will be refining this prototype over the next two years, and working to ensure that it meets the requirements of the FDA. Our goal is for the device to provide better readings than is currently possible using test strips and glucometers on the market.

In April 2018 Alertgy was invited to join the Health Technology Accelerator Program that Jump Start, Plug and Play and the Cleveland Clinic formed to speed up the process for companies to bring promising technology to patients. Based on its success in that program, Alertgy is scheduled to work this Spring with the Cleveland Clinic to validate its technology by doing side-by-side measurements with other CGM and SMBG systems. Plug and Play taps first Cleveland cohort

Check out their website: AlertGY.com

The Pursuit of Noninvasive Glucose: “Hunting the Deceitful Turkey” was written by John L. Smith (in it’s 6th and possibly final edition) about the many attempts to create non-invasive blood glucose sensors.

I actually owned one of the first Ames EyeTone Reflectance meters around 1970 (at a cost of $450, in 1970 dollars). This document is the impetus for Marc Rippen to start his company, Alertgy … “I knew that I could solve this problem with what I had learned building advanced military communications and sensing systems.Once the team was assembled, we built a working prototype in 90 days.

Drug company CEOs admit prescription prices are too high, but will they change … reported by Laura Santhanam on Health/PBS.org, 27 February 2019.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca Plc, from left, Giovanni Caforio, chairman and chief executive officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Jennifer Taubert, worldwide chairman of pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson, Albert Bourla, chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc., and Olivier Brandicourt, chief executive officer of Sanofi, await the start of a Senate Finance Committee hearing on drug pricing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019.

The CEOs of seven pharmaceutical giants gathered before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday to answer lawmakers’ questions about why U.S. drug prices are high — and rising. Even in a polarized Washington, drug prices are a classic pocketbook issue that fires up lawmakers from both parties and resonates with voters in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.

These pharmaceutical executives included Richard Gonzalez of AbbVie, Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, Giovanni Caforio of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Jennifer Taubert of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Ken Frazier of Merck, Albert Bourla of Pfizer and Olivier Brandicourt of Sanofi. Together, their companies earn billions of dollars treating the world’s maladies and operating under the premise that today’s profits will fund research and development for tomorrow’s cures.

To varying degrees, the executives backed the CREATES Act, a bipartisan bill first introduced in the Senate in 2017 to increase market competition and improve consumer access to cheaper generic and biosimilar medications. Executives criticized drug rebate programs, run by third-party administrators, which lower costs through opaque negotiations that make it difficult to track actual savings.

Is It Time to Stop Addressing Physicians as ‘Dr.’? was addressed by Ron Harman King of MedPageToday.com, 14 February 2019. Does it lead to dysfunctional relationships that undermine quality of care? Interesting question!

Ron Harman King, MS, of the healthcare consulting firm Vanguard Communications, suggests that habitual use of the formal title “Dr.” either consciously or subconsciously makes patients less likely to engage in more productive dialogue.

A recent study published in JAMA: “Prevalence of and Factors Associated With Patient Nondisclosure of Medically Relevant Information to Clinicians.” In this study, two online surveys found that a shocking majority of healthcare consumers consciously withhold at least one type of medically relevant information from their providers. One survey recorded 61% of respondents admitting a failure to fully disclose, while the other pegged the rate at a mind-boggling 81%!

Even more chilling were the common reasons respondents gave for keeping secrets, in descending order: Patients didn’t want to be judged or lectured. They didn’t want to hear how harmful their behavior is. They feared embarrassment. They didn’t want the clinician to think they’re difficult patients. And they didn’t want to take up more of the clinician’s time.

It is entirely possible that habitual use of the formal title “Dr.” either consciously or subconsciously makes patients just too darn bashful to engage in more productive dialogue. It may feel to many like having the audacity to ask the queen of England what brand deodorant she prefers.