Guide­line 8
7. Di­a­betes Tech­nol­o­gy: Stan­dards of Med­i­cal Care in Di­a­betes–2019

The Amer­i­can Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion (ADA) “Stan­dards of Med­i­cal Care in Di­a­betes” in­cludes ADA’s cur­rent clin­i­cal prac­tice rec­om­men­da­tions and is in­tend­ed to pro­vide the com­po­nents of di­a­betes care, gen­er­al treat­ment goals and guide­lines, and tools to eval­u­ate qual­i­ty of care. Mem­bers of the ADA Pro­fes­sion­al Prac­tice Com­mit­tee, a mul­ti­dis­ci­plinary ex­pert com­mit­tee, are re­spon­si­ble for up­dat­ing the Stan­dards of Care an­nu­al­ly, or more fre­quent­ly as war­rant­ed. For a de­tailed de­scrip­tion of ADA stan­dards, state­ments, and re­ports, as well as the ev­i­dence-‍grad­ing sys­tem for ADA’s clin­i­cal prac­tice rec­om­men­da­tions, please refer to the Stan­dards of Care In­tro­duc­tion. Read­ers who wish to com­ment on the Stan­dards of Care are in­vit­ed to do so at pro­fes­sion­al.di­a­betes.org/‍SOC.

Di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy is the term used to de­scribe the hard­ware, de­vices, and soft­ware that peo­ple with di­a­betes use to help man­age blood glu­cose lev­els, stave off di­a­betes com­pli­ca­tions, re­duce the bur­den of liv­ing with di­a­betes, and im­prove qual­i­ty of life. His­tor­i­cal­ly, di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy has been di­vid­ed into two main cat­e­gories: in­sulin ad­min­is­tered by sy­ringe, pen, or pump, and blood glu­cose mon­i­tor­ing as as­sessed by meter or con­tin­u­ous glu­cose mon­i­tor. More re­cent­ly, di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy has ex­pand­ed to in­clude hy­brid de­vices that both mon­i­tor glu­cose and de­liv­er in­sulin, some au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, as well as soft­ware that serves as a med­i­cal de­vice, pro­vid­ing di­a­betes self-man­agement sup­port. Di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy, when ap­plied ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, can im­prove the lives and health of peo­ple with di­a­betes; how­ev­er, the com­plex­i­ty and rapid change of the di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy land­scape can also be a bar­ri­er to pa­tient and pro­vider im­ple­men­ta­tion.

To pro­vide some ad­di­tion­al clar­i­ty in the di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy space, the Amer­i­can Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion is, for the first time, adding a ded­i­cat­ed sec­tion on di­a­betes tech­nol­o­gy to the “Stan­dards of Med­i­cal Care in Di­a­betes.” For this first writ­ing, the sec­tion will focus on in­sulin de­liv­ery and glu­cose mon­i­tor­ing with the most com­mon de­vices cur­rently in use. In fu­ture years, this sec­tion will be ex­pand­ed to in­clude soft­ware as a med­i­cal de­vice, pri­va­cy, cost, tech­nol­o­gy-enabled di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion and sup­port, telemedicine, and other is­sues that pro­viders and pa­tients en­counter with the use of tech­nol­o­gy in mod­ern di­a­betes care.