983-P: GluClose—Collaboratively Designing a More Personalized Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Onboarding Experience

Current resources for acclimating patients to continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) may not be convenient or individualized. We examined if design thinking could better understand patients’ challenges, to uncover insights to facilitate more personalized onboarding for individuals living with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) new to CGM.

Design Thinking seeks to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and discover strategies that might not be initially apparent. This iterative working process generates solutions. A 10-week sprint started with immersion in current devices, including wearing a demonstration CGM. After directly observing in a DM clinic CGM onboarding for T1DM patients, we interviewed 4 newly-diagnosed and 4 previously-diagnosed individuals with T1DM: ages 2-65, diagnosed 5 months to 58 years ago; and 2 health care professionals (HCP). Patients’ pain points included: being overwhelmed with technology, and feeling a lack of ongoing support.

Individuals’ journey maps and user personas informed low-fidelity prototypes for patient testing, which guided a high-fidelity prototype for GluClose. Key features included: recording goals; tracking progress; and providing a forum to ask questions and share information, with vetting for accuracy.

The Standard Usability Score was 74 (from 7 participant responses), which is above average for acceptability.

This early design thinking study of improving CGM onboarding demonstrates that our patient-driven prototype, GluClose, has high usability. Entering and tracking goals and questions could serve as a springboard for enhancing engagement and communication with other patients and HCP. Balancing participants’ preferences on interacting with HCP on GluClose with time and safety considerations can be both a challenge and an opportunity. Connecting T1DM patients with HCP, DM community members, and design thinkers could spark new questions and solutions, to further tailor and improve CGM onboarding.