Tandem + Tidepool: Lighting the Way

We're thrilled that Tandem has joined Asante, Dexcom, Insulet/OmniPod and Abbott in making data from their devices available through the Tidepool Platform. In this guest blog post, Tandem's Director of Marketing, Jim Berkebile, sheds some light on the importance of this partnership with a very personal note. Thanks Jim and Tandem! -- Howard

Tandem® Diabetes Care is excited to announce that #WeAreNotWaiting and will make therapy data from the t:slim® Insulin Pump available in the Tidepool platform. Therapy data from the t:slim Pump will be integrated with data from other devices to help patients and providers in the daily and sometimes seemingly relentless demands of living with diabetes.

On a personal note, having lived with diabetes for thirty years, I am incredibly excited about the inspiring vision that Howard and the entire Tidepool team have cast for aggregating and viewing diabetes therapy data in an open platform. Thirty years ago my knowledge of diabetes data was limited to the act of routinely and religiously compiling from “memory” (fabricating) 3 months of blood glucose and injection data on a sheet of paper in a matter of hours the night before my quarterly clinic visit. Magically, all my glucose values ended in “4” or “7” – not my finest moments! In essence, this ensured that neither I, nor my healthcare provider could find “teachable moments” in the data to help me. In 1984, I was running in the dark.

Running in the dark may seem exhilarating and even liberating to an adolescent. But after the inevitable ER visits that resulted, the better part of wisdom eventually set in. For years, patients with diabetes and their providers were running in the dark when it came to meaningful access to the data needed to live a better life with diabetes. The tools that have been emerging over the past few years, including our t:connect Diabetes Management Application and now the Tidepool platform and future Tidepool applications, are providing welcome light to further inform our journeys with diabetes. Even just lighting up the path for the next step - the next of hundreds of daily diabetes decisions - is welcome relief for people running in the dark.

We recognize the need for multiple solutions in data management and are proud to be creating partnerships with those in the diabetes community, like Tidepool, who are dedicated to improving the lives of people with diabetes.

Jim Berkebile, Director of Marketing - Product Development