Tenth birthday for Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre, the world-leading sensor-based glucose monitoring technology that has changed the lives of millions of people with diabetes. The celebratory moment – we read in a note – takes place during the ‘Diabetes Innovation Days’, the two-day event organized on 11 and 12 October in Rome by Abbott, which involved experts, scientific societies and representatives of patient associations, to discuss on the organizational and technological change in diabetes management. Since 2014, the FreeStyle Libre system has continuously evolved and expanded, revolutionizing the care of more than 6 million people in over 60 countries around the world.
“Ten years ago the arrival of the FreeStyle Libre system in Italy was one of the most important technological advances in diabetes management – states Massimiliano Bindi, CEO of Abbott Italia – Our glucose monitoring system with sensors allows people with diabetes to make more informed decisions faster and give diabetes teams an extra weapon to control diabetes and its complications. Abbott’s goal is to provide technologies that positively change the lives of people with diabetes and reduce overall costs to the system by improving its efficiency. This is why, for ten years, we have been committed to making FreeStyle Libre accessible to an ever-increasing number of people, to offer them the data and knowledge they need to help them live healthier and fuller lives.”
Until a decade ago, diabetes management was very different from today. Traditional blood sugar tests involved the need for painful and frequent finger pricks. Today all this has changed. The device offered a simple and painless way to monitor glucose levels without pricking your finger thanks to a small sensor that has evolved over time and which today, with the FreeStyle Libre Plus line, can be applied on the upper arm up to at 15 days. However, this is not just a simple sensor that measures glucose, but a real digital ecosystem which – thanks to the FreeStyle LibreLink and LibreLinkUp apps – allows you to view the data, glucose history and glucose arrows with a quick glance on your mobile phone. trends that indicate the trend of glucose levels over time, and to be alerted when the set values are exceeded. With this system, people with diabetes can make more informed decisions about how nutrition, therapies and exercise affect their glycemic levels and consequently adopt appropriate behaviors more quickly to improve their daily glycemic profile according to the doctor’s opinion . Family members and caregivers can also automatically receive glucose readings and set optional alarms, contributing to more relaxed disease management. And thanks to the LibreView telemonitoring platform, the data collected by the sensors can also be automatically sent to your doctor.
The way we manage diabetes is changing rapidly, and with it the digital health tools and services needed by people with diabetes and healthcare professionals to improve daily management. The partnerships and collaborations that Abbott is developing represent a concrete commitment to making services dedicated to people with diabetes more inclusive, accessible and widespread. Such as, for example, the collaborations with the Tuscany Region for the integrated management of glucose data within the electronic health record and with Meteda for the electronic medical record of diabetic patients. Added to these are the sensor integrations with Ypsomed’s automated insulin delivery systems, and with Novo Nordisk’s smart pens for insulin administration.
“Abbott is paving the way for the future of diabetes management – underlines Luigi Russo, general manager Abbott Diabetes Care Italia – not only through the continuous innovation of the FreeStyle Libre line, but also through the commitment to broaden integration and interoperability of our systems. We are in the midst of a transition towards increasingly digital healthcare and the offering of new interconnected and automated services, such as teleconsultation, telemedicine, the integration of glycemic data with the electronic health record and with systems for automated insulin delivery, they are an integral part of our commitment. The existing and future partnerships we are working on are a great opportunity to encourage a transformation of the treatment path and to offer increasingly effective services for citizens and healthcare workers.”
Today in Italy there are almost 4 million people living with diabetes, a number expected to rise to 5 million by 2030. Approximately 9% of total healthcare spending is attributable to diabetes and up to 75% of these costs could be linked to complications potentially avoidable through adequate management. Achieving better metabolic compensation, also thanks to increasingly personalized and simple-to-use technologies such as FreeStyle Libre, can help reduce the risk of complications and skyrocketing healthcare costs. Considering technology and digitalisation as an investment and not a cost could be the new healthcare paradigm to overcome the challenge of chronicity. To date, in Italy the reimbursement criteria for sensor-based glucose monitoring devices differ from region to region. Some regions reimburse these devices only for people on multi-injection insulin therapy, others, such as Lombardy, Lazio, Sicily and Campania, provide for the reimbursement of systems such as the FreeStyle Libre in all patients treated with insulin and, in particular conditions, also in patients treated with other drugs.
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