WORK
Designing the Connected Future of Diabetes Management
Expanding IDEO's partnership with Ascensia to develop an engaging, internet-enabled blood glucose monitoring system
The Challenge
Create a comprehensive diabetes management system for the digital age.
IMPACT
CONTOUR NEXT ONE and CONTOUR DIABETES app has launched in 44 countries and 23 languages.
The OUTCOME
The CONTOUR NEXT ONE blood glucose meter and the CONTOUR DIABETES app.
PRESS
The Dr. Oz Show featured the CONTOUR NEXT ONE system as part of its 60-Day Diabetes Take Charge Challenge
Keeping diabetes in check isn’t easy. Between checking blood sugar multiple times a day, keeping a detailed activity record, and logging food intake, staying healthy can be daunting.
But a recent advance in smart diabetes management—Ascensia’s CONTOUR NEXT ONE blood glucose meter and the CONTOUR DIABETES app—can give patients more clarity and control.
The CONTOUR NEXT ONE is the latest product to spring from a multi-year collaboration between IDEO and Ascensia Diabetes Care (formerly Bayer Diabetes Care). In 2009, Ascensia and IDEO developed the award-winning CONTOUR USB blood glucose meter—the first meter to plug directly into a computer, providing patients and their doctors with instant access to blood sugar data and personal trend reports.
Buoyed by the success of the first collaboration, Ascensia asked IDEO to help design a next-generation diabetes management system (and the company’s first internet-connected device).
To help reduce the stigma of checking blood sugar in public, IDEO designed the CONTOUR NEXT ONE to look and behave like today’s modern tech devices. The highly simplified, seamless system allows patients to upload blood glucose readings automatically to the app, which helps guide informed, real-time decisions. The meter’s red, green, or yellow smartLIGHT feature gives instant feedback about whether blood sugar levels are below, within, or above the target range.
Seeing contextual data, which includes physical activity logs and photos of meals, paired with recent and historic blood sugar levels, nudges patients toward healthier lifestyle choices and better control of their condition.
For doctors, the accuracy and quantity of the data combined with the app’s easy-to-read pattern views invites more comprehensive, actionable conversations with patients.
Putting the patient at the center of everything we create is what Ascensia Diabetes Care is all about. Collaborating with IDEO over the past few years is an excellent example of working with a strategic partner to address the needs of people with diabetes through innovation.
Jazz Panchoo, Head of Global Strategy and Connected Solutions, Ascensia Diabetes Care
The CONTOUR NEXT ONE hit shelves in Europe in 2016 and is now available in the U.S. Ascensia is poised to develop more products enabled by rich, personalized data to help people with diabetes live longer, healthier lives.
2017