Laura Gandrud

I graduated from Stanford University (BS in biology) and from Harvard Medical School (MD). I completed both my pediatric residency and fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. My interest in pediatric Type 1 diabetes (T1D) pattern detection began as a fellow in 2001. My primary fellowship project used near continuous glucose sensors (CGMS Gold) in toddlers with T1D to assess nocturnal patterns of hypoglycemia. In my current clinical position at a busy diabetes center, I recognize daily the inadequacies of infrequent clinic visits and the need for innovation in care delivery.

As technology has evolved and blue-tooth enabled diabetes devices have become available, my interest in capitalizing on large amounts of easily available data to improve diabetes care has grown. The ability to rapidly analyze data sets to provide useful, timely and frequent feedback to families struggling with T1D is paramount. With this in mind, in the fall of 2015, I initiated a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of remote monitoring of children with diabetes, (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02596204). Our cohort consisted of 117 children with T1D. All subjects uploaded their pump, meter, Fitbit activity and sleep data to a cloud based application weekly. The intervention consisted of weekly review of pump, meter, and activity data (step count) by the diabetes care team with recommendations for management changes sent to the family by email. The pilot intervention was well-received by families and there was a trend towards improvement in diabetes control particularly in adolescent participants. Yet to sustain or expand an intervention like this, what is critically needed is an automated system that can alert diabetes care teams to actionable adherence or glycemic patterns, thus allowing for delivery of “personalized” medicine.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]