“I think [glucose] meters are lame. They could do so much more as they are the size of a cell phone. They could deliver MP3’s, work as a PDA, etc.” Posted in Diabetesforums.com by Cyborg
My daughter told me about this really cool glucose meter she had heard about for kids, Glucoboy. It’s a glucose meter for diabetics that can be connected to a Nintendo Game Boy. Glucoboy was created by Paul Wessell, whose son Luke was diagnosed with diabetes at age 3. Wessel noticed that his son could never find his blood glucose meter but always knew where his Nintendo Game Boy was. So Wessel, whose background is in automation technology, founded Guidance Interactive Healthcare and invented Glucoboy for his son. The device creates an incentive for kids to play with their Game Boy after scoring well on their blood tests.
Wow!! What an invention, a medical device made for kids that could actually make glucose testing interesting for kids, and keep parents happy as they help their child managed their illness. Currently this device is only available in Australia.
The marriage between a medical device and hand-held entertainment technology is very ingenious. Just imagine, if you could attached a glucose meter, heart monitoring device, etc. to an iPod and/or cell phone? It’s a no brainer, right? However, from where I sit there’s one major barrier preventing this marriage from truly being consummated, handheld device technology changes to rapidly to allow for timely FDA approval. Currently, all medical devices must be approved by the FDA and getting a device approved by the FDA is not a quick process, it takes years. So basically by the time the FDA approves a device, the technology would have already evolved to the next generation, if not the third, fourth, or fifth generation.
For instance, Glucoboy was first introduced in 2004 for the original Nintendo Game Boy. This is the same year Nintendo introduced Nintendo DS (the successor to the Game Boy), not to mention the Game Boy Advance, the upgraded version to the original Game Boy, was introduced the year before in 2003. So when Wassel introduced the Glucoboy for the original Game Boy, it was already on the downside of Game Boy’s product lifecycle. It would have taken years for the FDA to approve the device for the original Game Boy. Therefore, most likely, the device would have already been replaced by the Nintendo DS or possibly the Nintendo DSi by the time FDA granted approval. So trying to convince a child to play with the original Game Boy when the latest hand-held gaming device is about 3 iterations beyond the Game Boy (i.e. Nintendo DSi, Sony PSP, and Apple iPod Touch) will be harder to do than just making them keep up with a traditional glucose meter.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this is one of the contributing reasons why Glucoboy is not available in the U.S. and why there isn’t a newer version that works on Nintendo’s more recent hand-held gaming systems.
Click here to visit Guidance Health web site.
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