The Patient Equation

5One Breath, One Drop—Asthma and Diabetes, Chronic Conditions Being Conquered with Technology

On the face of it, asthma and diabetes don't look like they have much in common. And the deeper you dig, the more you realize—they don't. Which is why talking about both of them here offers a lesson: patient equations aren't just about solving one kind of health care problem, or about one template we can apply over and over again. The game is really different when we compare asthma to diabetes. In one (asthma) we're trying to keep people out of a dangerous situation. Our inputs are all about the combination of internal and external variables. There's how the patient is breathing—and then there's also the environment outside and what triggers may be present. In the other (diabetes) it's all a single internal process we need to try to keep in balance—the regulation of sugar level and insulin.

What they both do have in common is the need for real-time intervention and adjustment. This isn't like cancer, where we're looking for signifiers about a larger process, indicators that might be able to tell us sooner than traditional measures. This isn't something where we can wait to sync with our phones, check an app, study the data. This is now, in that moment—we need to leave for a better air quality environment (asthma), or we need to dose insulin right away (diabetes). There is no margin for error if patients are going to trust these devices or the algorithms behind them. There is no time ...