Exploring Key Takeaways from the American Diabetes Association's Annual Meeting
The American Diabetes Association's annual meeting is a highly anticipated event that brings together researchers, healthcare professionals, and individuals affected by diabetes. It’s a luxury to attend the scientific sessions and to hear from clinical and scientific thought leaders from around the world. This year's conference in San Diego showcased groundbreaking developments in diabetes management and shed light on emerging trends in the field. In this blog post, we will highlight three important topics discussed at the conference: the growing importance of continuous glucose monitoring; the role of care teams in managing diabetes; and the focus on cardiometabolic disease as the underlying physiologic state.
Taking a break to answer calls and emails on the terrace of the San Diego Convention Center.
The Growing Importance of Continuous Glucose Monitoring
One of the most significant advancements in diabetes care is the increasing prominence and adoption of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). Traditional fingerstick blood glucose measurements are valuable but provide limited information about glucose fluctuations throughout the day. CGM technology allows for real-time monitoring of glucose levels, enabling individuals with diabetes and their healthcare providers to make more informed treatment decisions. At the conference, several studies demonstrated the effectiveness of CGM in improving glycemic control, reducing hypoglycemia, and enhancing overall diabetes management. Presentations focused on the role of CGM in special populations such as gestational diabetes and medically underserved populations as well as the impact of new tools and metrics such as Time in Range, Glycemic Risk Index and Clinical Decision Support. More to come on all of those topics in a future post!
The expanding availability of user-friendly and affordable CGM devices has made this technology more accessible to a broader range of individuals, transforming the way diabetes is monitored and managed. Recent changes to Standards of Care and Medicare coverage have driven this increased adoption of CGM. Kelly Close of Close Concerns presented estimates that 6.7 million people use CGM globally, an 8-fold increase from 2017. With 70 million people globally on insulin therapy, there’s plenty of growth to come.
The Role of Care Teams in Managing Diabetes
Traditionally, diabetes management has primarily revolved around the patient's relationship with their endocrinologist or primary care physician. However, the conference emphasized the significance of multidisciplinary care teams in achieving optimal outcomes. These teams consist of healthcare professionals such as endocrinologists, diabetes educators, nurses, dietitians, and mental health specialists. The collaborative approach allows for comprehensive and personalized care, addressing not only glucose control but also other aspects of diabetes management, including education, lifestyle modifications, mental health support, and medication adherence.
Studies presented at the meeting highlighted that care teams significantly improve patient outcomes, enhance self-management skills, and reduce the burden of diabetes-related complications. Encouragingly, the conference showcased successful care team models implemented in various healthcare settings, underscoring their potential to scale effective diabetes care models. We will highlight some great examples of these team-based models, including the role of telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs, in a future post.
Focus on Cardiometabolic Disease and its Overlap with Obesity and Hypertension Management
Second to CGM, the expo floor and many of the scientific sessions were dominated by GLP-1 agents and their role in both diabetes management and weight loss. The focus on the inextricable relationship between type 2 diabetes and overall cardiometabolic health emphasized the crucial role of comprehensive management strategies. Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and fatty liver disease often coexist, leading to an increased risk of cardiovascular complications. By addressing these interconnected conditions collectively, healthcare providers can develop targeted interventions to mitigate the risk.
The meeting featured discussions on the latest research and treatment modalities focusing on weight management, blood pressure control, and lifestyle interventions. Speakers stressed the importance of a holistic approach that considers not only glucose control but also cardiovascular health and metabolic risk factors. This integrated approach has the potential to significantly reduce the incidence of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and improve the overall quality of life for individuals with diabetes.
Rimidi is Built for Comprehensive Cardiometabolic Disease Management
The American Diabetes Association's annual meeting showcased groundbreaking developments, highlighted key trends in diabetes management, and underscored that Rimidi’s platform is built to support these evolutions in disease management—not just for diabetes, but for its comorbidities as well.
As continuous glucose monitoring emerged as a game-changer, Rimidi added integrations to leading CGMs to bring CGM data into the clinical workflow with guideline-based clinical decision support. This year at the event, Rimidi announced further enhancements to its platform, including the addition of Glycemic Risk Index, a new actionable metric for describing the quality of glycemia in CGM tracking.
Additionally, the conference underscored the critical overlap between cardiometabolic disease, obesity, and hypertension, calling for holistic management strategies to reduce cardiovascular risk. Rimidi’s platform consists of disease-specific modules for diabetes and its comborbid conditions, which provide problem-oriented screens with a set of relevant clinical data, patient-generated data, and guideline-based risk scores specific to a disease and a patient. Current modules include: Diabetes; Cardiovascular Disease; Heart Failure; Fatty Liver Disease; Obesity; and respiratory diseases like COPD and Asthma, with a module for Chronic Kidney Disease set to be released by the end of 2023.
The latest developments showcased at the event will undoubtedly shape the future of diabetes care, offering hope for improved outcomes and better quality of life for individuals living with diabetes. Attending events like this will remain crucial to shaping Rimidi’s product roadmap, so that we can fulfill our mission of helping clinicians optimize data to enable better clinical workflows, better clinical decisions, better patient engagement, care and outcomes, and ultimately—a better healthcare system.
