Beta app aims to aid glucose monitoring, add AI to help diabetics

Mobile app monitors glucose levels and predicts how blood glucose is likely to rise or fall during the next three to six hours.


Working in a remote region of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that has only one physician, Julie Beck knew she needed some backup to better control her glucose levels.

“I looked all over the Web to put pieces of a healthy diabetic life into one application and could not find it,” recalls Beck, an account executive at UP Health System Home Care and Hospice. Blood sugar exercises were available, but nothing that did it all. When offered a certified diabetic educator, she grabbed the opportunity.

Beck was used to entering her blood sugar levels in a book, but now as a beta tester for software vendor OneDrop, she has a mobile app that monitors glucose levels and predicts how blood glucose is likely to rise or fall during the next three to six hours.


The app further reminds Beck of the benefits of a short walk after meals and offers a personal health assistant that is a digital tool for monitoring medication, food, activity, blood sugar, blood pressure, weight and other health markers, all on the phone. “I push a button on the app and get all of my health information so my provider and I can make better decisions.”

One Drop further combines personalized one-on-one remote coaching with insights from artificial intelligence, along with machine learning technology combined with health data collected from 1.5 million users, to generate actionable advice that connects behavior with outcomes to promote lasting behavior change.

Usually when people are diagnosed with diabetes they get flustered and worried about their future, Beck notes. “They don’t understand that if they get an app to check sugar that little device will help them make good decisions.”

She further advises new patients to join a 12-week program on what diabetes is, how to take care of yourself and also work with a certified diabetic educator—often a nutritionist—and particularly if living in rural areas.