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One Drop: using technology to battle diabetes

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CIOL Writers
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CIOL One Drop: using technology to battle diabetes

When in 2013, Jeff Dachis learned that he had diabetes, his disappointment and subsequent frustration at discovery of the complete lack of tools available to manage it motivated him to invent them.

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“Immediately, I started looking around for the best gear to get and the most interesting data sets to look at to help me manage my diabetes better,” said Dachis. “It turns out the technology from the ‘80s is still what people use for managing their diabetes. It seemed to me like a wide-open gaping hole in the marketplace.”

One Drop is among the few start-ups that are using technology to lead the charge of revolutionizing medicine. In the present times, healthcare is witnessing a movement toward “self-care” tools that empower individuals to take control of their health. These tech advancements are giving people innovative ways to approach their medical needs.

OneDrop, a Waze for diabetes, pulls together all the data in an app and gives users all the information they need, in one place: tracking glucose levels, meals consumed, exercise & activity information, and much more. OneDrop also connects users, letting them share their data and support each other’s endeavors.

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“Technology can put the power of decision making much more firmly in the patient's’ hands, and that’s a huge shift,” Dachis says. “Imagine feeling empowered by your own information, and the data of people like you, to make informed decisions for yourself.”

One Drop was selected to be one of six launch partners for Apple's recently announced CareKit, a new software framework designed to empower people by giving them better access and control of their own health information.

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For the moment, Dachis is focused only on One Drop’s customer experience.

“People with diabetes oftentimes feel shame and depression and feel very alone,” he said. “We want people to feel like every prick of the finger is an opportunity to live life to its fullest, literally, one drop at a time. And so for us diabetes is really a way to be 'dia-badasses,' to be in control of your life and to be living to the fullest.”

The application has users in 198 countries, and over 800 cities which have generated 1,000,000 user sessions and over 42,000,000 health data points.

To download the app, click here.

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