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Profile of BB King featured on Discovery Health Channel in special Noevember series on diabetes

By Anonymous

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE        CONTACTS: Toni Delacorte, Discovery Health Channel
November 1, 2002                301-771-3781 or toni_delacorte-CW@discovery.com
                                  Genea Luck, American Diabetes Association
                        (703) 299-2077 or gluck@diabetes.org

MANY FACES AND FACETS OF DIABETES FEATURED IN THREE SPECIAL PROGRAMS THIS NOVEMBER ON DISCOVERY HEALTH CHANNEL

-Supporting the efforts of the American Diabetes Association, programs use
real-life stories to shed light on disease reaching epidemic proportions -

BETHESDA, MD – November 2002 – BEATING DIABETES, a three-part series of one-hour programs produced by the Discovery Health Channel in support of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), brings viewers to the front lines of the fight against a silent epidemic. The first program in the series looks at new experimental treatments; the second profiles blues artist BB King; and the third features an interview with actress Liz Torres.
Coinciding with National Diabetes Awareness Month in November, each of the three special programs uses personal stories to take a compelling look at diabetes, an incurable disease that affects an estimated 17 million people in the US – nearly six million of whom do not even know they have it.
Discovery Health Channel is supporting the ADA’s efforts to raise awareness of diabetes, its serious complications and to support efforts in searching for a cure. “It is our hope that these programs will help people learn about diabetes and get involved in our mission to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes,” said Francine Kaufman, M.D., President, American Diabetes Association.
DIABETES: IN SEARCH OF A MIRACLE, which premieres Thursday, November 14, 8-9 PM (ET/PT), features people with diabetes who are now facing serious complications due to their diabetes – such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and lower-limb amputations, all devastating consequences of diabetes. The show also looks at cutting edge experimental transplants that have ignited beacons of hope.
Legendary blues singer BB King is the subject of MEDICAL PROFILE: BB KING, which premieres Monday, November 18, 9-10 PM (ET/PT). Few would guess that King is living with diabetes or that he nearly ended up in a coma before he was diagnosed 12 years ago. On tour in 1990, King was at the top of his game – traveling around the world doing 300 shows a year – when he suddenly developed a

mysterious illness that he could not shake. King has no idea how long he has had diabetes because many people live for years with undiagnosed diabetes. And, the symptoms are generally “silent,” gradually sneaking up with very few outward symptoms. In its early-undiagnosed stages, diabetes can cause serious nerve damage, kidney and eye disease and even heart disease may begin to develop unnoticed. Factors such as his age, the fact that he was overweight, even his family history contributed to King being at high risk for developing the disease.
    Minorities such as African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are disproportionately affected by diabetes. SILENT CRISIS: DIABETES AMONG US, premiering Saturday, November 23, 10-11 PM (ET/PT), exposes the silent menace lurking within the Black and Latino communities and features personal stories of people that illustrate how diabetes threatens their health, their families and their lives. Among those profiled include Liz Torres, a television, stage and film actress who was recently diagnosed as having a condition called “pre-diabetes.” Torres currently plays Miss Patty in the WB Network series, "Gilmore Girls.”
“It is so important to shed light on diseases such as diabetes that are growing in epidemic proportions,” says Bob Reid, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Discovery Health Channel. “We are honored to have the expertise of the American Diabetes Association to help Discovery Health Channel bring this engaging, inspiring and informative series of programs to our audience.”
In addition to programming, other key components of the partnership with the American Diabetes Association include Discovery Health’s promotion of ADA’s nationwide fundraisers “America’s Walk for Diabetes,” special educational PSAs that will air on the Discovery Health Channel throughout the month of November, and diabetes related content on the DiscoveryHealth.com web site.




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New Technology Helping Kids With Diabetes to Exhibit May 1 at the ADA Expo in Phoenix

By Anonymous

Dallas, TX April 29, 2004 -– A breakthrough technology for those with diabetes will be on exhibit at the American Diabetes Association's Diabetes Expo this Saturday morning, May 1, at the Phoenix Civic Plaza. The GlucoMON™ device by Diabetech® is designed to make life more manageable for the 13 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes.

The GlucoMON has put cell-phone technology into the case of a glucose meter so that caregivers get a text message, email or page within seconds of the meter's going back into its case after a blood glucose check.

With the GlucoMON recently hitting the market, parents of children with diabetes are the first to benefit. From day-care to high school and college, parents can finally know that their child is checking without waiting for a call from a school nurse or pestering the child for blood glucose results. "The GlucoMON is different from any other tool out there because there are no extra buttons to push, no cables to connect or computer time. Without adding anything to the blood testing routine, there's no way to fall down on the job or get tired of keeping up with it. It's automatic," says Hilary Hale of Diabetech, the company behind this new technology.

"Especially wonderful is the ability for [my 13 year old daughter with diabetes to spend the night at her dad's or her friend's houses, with my knowing that she is fine. I really appreciate the instantaneous cell phone link, even when I am not in the same city!" says Irene of Dallas.

Teachers and school nurses are also seeing the advantages of the GlucoMON. They no longer have to track down a parent to report a blood glucose level or make special arrangements for the child participating in a field trip or extracurricular activity. Because the GlucoMON is built into the case, there is no additional training required for school personnel – they don't have to learn how to work or keep up with another device.

"Even though [my 15 year old son with diabetes is …away attending school, I know within minutes whether he is suffering from hypoglycemia or whether his ketones need to be monitored. …We used to battle about the false information he provided regarding his blood glucose levels. Now he just replaces his meter into the cradle [of the GlucoMON case and I call him if he needs me. …I sleep more peacefully, and he has regained some of his independence," says Ann in Indiana.

Benefits of the GlucoMON are also being seen by CDEs and physicians, who need to keep in touch with high-risk patients. Studies have shown the GlucoMON helpful in identifying hyperglycemic trends that could allow intervention before the patient ends up in the Emergency Room. It is also being used to connect the physician to a patient who has been recently released from the ER.

The GlucoMON is working to ease the difficult transition a child has during the process of starting on an insulin pump. During the critical first days of a pump start, CDEs can choose to get an automatic phone call or page whenever the child uses their meter and then move to being notified by email to keep an eye on progress from a distance. By keeping the whole team "in the know" when they need to know, parents are finally getting the help they need to more easily and responsibly manage their child's disease.

A whole new world of normalcy is opening for youngsters with diabetes: independence and better care for them and peace of mind for their parents. Says Kevin McMahon, President of Diabetech, creator of the GlucoMON technology and father of a child with Type I diabetes: "Our goal is to put a safety net of informed caregivers around each child with diabetes."

For more about the ADA Expo, go to www.diabetes.org. Learn more about the GlucoMON at www.glucomon.com. Inquiries may be directed to Hilary Hale, Vice President of Corporate Communications, at hilary@diabetech.net.

About Diabetech
Diabetech is a Dallas, Texas based service provider offering wireless devices within a collaborative diabetes management system. Subscription service is available to connect the patient’s extended management team in order to reliably collect, share and analyze diabetes data. www.glucomon.com


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Diabetech Leads XML Initiative for Improved Diabetes Management

By Anonymous

This new standards organization will create a set of interfaces that will expose relevant data in a secure and easy to use manner. These standards will be freely available to member companies, developers and medical providers as a set of guidelines to ease the data access and exchange processes concerning relevant diabetic health care information.

The impetus for this new organization is the increasing need for health care professionals to have real-time access to vital data such as blood glucose levels, insulin dosing and patient-defined attributes like meals, exercise, carbohydrate quantities, insulin types, etc. Further, this information can be contained in several different tools even for the same patient. The ability to gather this data from multiple sources, aggregating and transforming it into actionable information is a not only a challenge for efficient self-management but also a missing link in the extended health care team’s toolkit.

When a member of the team including the health care professional needs to access this information, they must understand the technical details of the specific data format. Most of the time, this data can be viewed individually although this is as yet quite inefficient with each source having its own unique abbreviations, formats and attributes.

As a member of this community, the health care provider is more likely to choose a vendor that is compliant to this standard since it will give them a singular set of interfaces to work with regardless of the actual data source being used by the patient. With a critical mass of members, this organization will be the solution set of choice for not only providers seeking diabetes management data, but also for organizations interested in diabetes research.

By sharing what data each member of the community would like to expose, each member’s position and market opportunity is enhanced. Their visibility is increased and this enhances the patient’s choice in selecting the best of breed components that ultimately comprise any number of variable diabetes management solutions.

This community will first work together to develop a set of common XML documents and schema definitions to enable exchange of data in a common format. Members will then agree to register their use of this specification that will be the end product of this community. Eventually the community may come up with a set of standard methods that will provide the mechanism for easy exchange of data.

Once the members of the community have adopted the standards, tests will be scheduled to verify conformance to the standards. A group mailing list and a website will be formed to connect each member with the community and to provide updates as fixes and enhancements to the standard set.

The founding members of the DMI are:

Diabetech
www.diabetech.net

Texas A&M Corpus Christi
www.tamucc.edu

DiabetEase
www.diabetease.com

Mr. Scott Hanselman
The developer of GlucoPilot, a leading handheld diabetes management application for the Palm OS.

Voting membership is available to any company, developer or organization that harvests any kind of diabetes relevant data that may be useful to others. This membership will be open to more than just diabetes related members as it is critical that anything agreed upon by the DMI must adhere to and integrate to other pervasive standards such as HL7, CIC, etc... as well as various federal and state regulations including HIPAA among others.

In addition, many people with diabetes also have other healthcare complications, which carry their own information standardization challenge. The Diabetes Management Initiative will eventually link seamlessly to these other standards, including any form of health care information.

The initial set of guiding standards is anticipated for publication near the end of the 3rd quarter of 2003. Testing will be performed on a pairing basis and a matrix will be maintained by the DMI as to which companies have successfully traded data with each other.

The window of opportunity is now and the time is right for this leading group of diabetes health care management entities to form an alliance and present one face to the benefit of patients and their medical providers. Through the early success of member organizations, all vendors will see the benefits of finally working together rather than in isolation.


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