Bree Holtz, a researcher at Michigan State University, and her team have developed and are testing an innovative mobile phone app, called MyT1D Hero, to connect adolescents with type-1 diabetes (T1D) with their parents to help support the transition to self-management.
This mobile app is unique because it links parents and kids in a way that existing technologies do not by creating two separate apps (one for the parent and one for the child) that work together to manage the care of the child. The main goal of this research is to aid in the successful transition to self-care for the kid and increase positive health outcomes. This research will also help us to further understand what types of messages, reward systems, and technology cues can improve adherence.
This research is supported by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) grant #1-16-ICTS-045. For more information on the ADA please visit their website: http://diabetes.org.
The Team
Dr. Holtz is working with a talented team of specialists in the field of diabetes and communication that includes:
Shelia Cotten, Ph.D., Denise Hershey, Ph.D., RN, FNP-BC, Amanda Holmstrom, Ph.D., and Katharine Murray, M.A. from MSU. Julie Dunneback, MSN, APRN, BC, CPNP, CDE from Sparrow Health System. Jose Jimenez-Vega, M.D. from Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. Michael Wood, M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School, and Joshua Richman, M.D., Ph.D. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The team is also working with Jason Anderson to develop the app. Please see the Team Biographies page for more information.
Progress
We completed year 3 of our research now and are currently working on disseminating our findings through academic papers. We held focus groups and prototype testing with two separate groups of kids age 10-15 with T1D and their parents in order to get their feedback on our ideas and design of the mobile app. We worked with the app development team to create and then refine the app, and then we conducted the big testing of the app.
