February 6, 2025 • 22 mins
An interview on smart technologies for diabetes management with Jing Wang, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, dean of the Florida State University College of Nursing.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Klonoff (00:14):
Welcome to Diabetes Technology Report.
I'm Dr David Klonoff.
I'm an endocrinologist atSutter Health and UCSF.
We have a special guest today.
My co-host, Dr David Kerr, willintroduce himself and we'll ask
her the first questions.
David Kerr (00:29):
Thanks, david, and hello to everyone listening
today.
This is our first DiabetesTechnology Report of 2025.
It's not a happy new year toeveryone and we're beginning
with a bang.
Here We've got a really specialguest, dr Jing Wang, who's
speaking to us from Florida,where the weather's been a
little bit unusual, but, jing,welcome aboard, and we always
(00:53):
like to begin these podcastswith just finding a little bit
about you how you ended up beinginterested in diabetes in
general and technology inparticular.
What kind of led you to thissituation?
Yeah, sure.
Jing Wang (01:08):
Happy New Year everyone and thank you, david
and David, it's such an honor tobe here with both of you and
everyone.
I think I started at Universityof Pittsburgh.
I was a trainee at Universityof Pittsburgh where you know the
diabetes prevention program andlook ahead study, and I was
just kind of solely focused inthis behavior concept of
(01:31):
self-monitoring, which at thetime we're still using paper
diaries and we're comparingpaper diaries with personal
digital assistants.
So that's kind of very naturalfor me to kind of work in the
area of diabetes, diabetesprogression, obesity, diabetes
management.
I have to sort of get myselfinto the technology because my
(01:57):
concept is self-monitoring andby the time I graduate the PDAs
became obsolete.
So my whole area ofself-monitoring went into
smartphones, bluetooth-enableddevices, glucometers to
wirelessly connected glucometersand then incorporating
(02:20):
wearables such as the jawbone atthe time.
So all kinds of differentwearables such as the jawbone at
the time, so all kinds ofdifferent wearables, connected
applications.
So that's kind of how I startedwas a focusing self-monitoring
kind of getting into the wholearea of digital health
technology and I started acouple of research center of
(02:42):
excellence in the area of mobilehealth, connected house, smart
and connected house, and now youcall it, digital health, and we
can also have to just getourselves into this whole what I
call multiple behaviorself-monitoring, because diet,
exercise and both play a role innot only glucose levels but
(03:06):
also weight.
So how these behaviors andweight and glucose intertwine
together with multiple behaviorsand multiple disease outcomes,
because you know our patientsour diabetes patients often have
to manage their weight and someother conditions such as
hypertension.
So we actually end updeveloping a platform where
(03:27):
we're just kind of getting allof these wearables, remote
monitoring devices all togetherand optimize and visualize this
for a patient I have to ask you.
David Kerr (03:37):
I mean, some of those things you've just
mentioned.
It's like a blast from the past.
You know all these differentancient now technologies and
we're now into multimodalmonitoring, to use the jargon.
But what about the view fromthe other side, from people with
diabetes?
What do you find?
Are you finding that people arekind of going, whoa, this is
(03:58):
too much, or whoa, this isreally interesting.
Why haven't we done this before, and what's your feeling about
that?
Jing Wang (04:09):
Yes, so our research has always been grounded with
patient needs.
You know we do a lot ofqualitative research, kind of
interviewing patients and kindof understanding their needs,
and this involvement ofconnected technology kind of all
came from patient needs.
So at the time, at the oldAsian time, you know, the
diabetes educators and patientswould spend the whole visit time
kind of just doing a dietaryrecall for the whole 30 minutes
(04:33):
and kind of the technology with,you know, wearables and
app-based nutrition monitoringkind of.
Our connected platform that wedeveloped actually reduced that
time of recall into less than aminute so that the patients and
the educators actually againstand the counselors can actually
(04:56):
spend the rest of the 29 minutesto actually focus on
individualized education, whatwe call diabetes self-management
education and support, and itis overwhelming.
The other part is well, becauseyou cannot really ignore any
part, both diet and exercise andwhat we find is the best way of
losing weight for diabetespatients and if you do both
(05:19):
right, and even for the diabetesprevention program, look ahead,
you need to look at how bothdiet and exercise work together
so kind of with this, how theevidence supports it, but it's
too much work for patient tomonitor and that's how, like
what we try to actually recently, use digital twin-based ai
(05:39):
tools to make multi-modalself-monitoring simpler.
And what we are doing researchis also trying to see can we
actually use some of thehome-based monitoring to mimic
what is more, like you have toput efforts in entering what you
eat into, like right now, thetechnology where you can have a
(06:00):
refrigerator and we can actuallyyou don't have to do any of the
actual active monitoring bypassive monitoring through your
refrigerator where you get yourfood, or if you have food from
outside, you scan the barcode offood, can make these things
much easier for you.
I still give you thatself-awareness that you will be
(06:23):
able to use to guide yourbehavior change.
David Klonoff (06:26):
Jing currently who's using your platform.
Is it being used by patients inthe clinic or is it a research
tool?
Jing Wang (06:34):
Currently it's a research tool, so we have also
like trying to expand it to bemore a community-based tool, but
so far we actually havesupported over 20 studies.
Right now, um, as it starts andbecause of the capacity and the
tools kept changing, so wewe're actually not like a
married with any particularbrand of device.
(06:57):
So we're trying to make thisplatform where we can.
You know, different projectscan use different like like some
projects monitor salt intakefrom their diets and high blood
pressure with a blood pressuremonitor.
Some use, you know, glucometer,some use continuous glucometer
and add the Fitbit or otherdietary monitoring tools.
David Klonoff (07:19):
Um, some people who use an app will lose
interest.
Much of the research shows thefirst three months people have
good results and then by a year,very few people are using the
product.
What do you do to keep peopleinterested and allow persistence
?
Jing Wang (07:37):
Yeah, actually what?
When I started, even my conceptis self monitoring actually
started?
Actually, I started the conceptwas adherence and in the area
of adherence, what you see iswhat you just described.
It's a shape where people willsuddenly become very interested
in the new thing and then theadherence and the adherence to
(07:58):
self-monitoring will drop.
Actually, in one of our mostrecent studies, what I kind of
briefly mentioned the digitaltwin is that we're using all of
the self-monitoring data todevelop sort of a digital twin
version of the person based onhow their glucose and their
weight will change in responseto their diets and exercise
(08:19):
changes.
And we are actually trying tosend that feedback based on the
digital twin data to thepatients to say, next day, if
you continue with your behaviortoday, your next day is good,
because it's possible to be veryhigh or very low, and to see
that kind of tailored andAI-enhanced message will
(08:40):
actually help patients to bemore adherent, because some of
the self-monitoring and thereneeds to be feedback right the
role in a behavior concept isall about how can we help people
to manage their behaviors sothat they can get to the blood
glucose and weight balance whereit's hard to have.
(09:01):
And if you're just monitoring,um, it kind of it doesn't kind
of get to the behavior changeand kind of, right now, uh, you
have to generate thatself-awareness and also how that
self-awareness in yourenvironment to actually create
that behavior change.
So what we have found althoughself-monitoring itself can be
really boring, um, the digitaltools actually can make it a
(09:24):
little bit more fun, especiallyright now.
A lot of apps can have morelike game-based rewards, even
financial rewards.
You know some insurancecompany-based companies.
They will have those financialincentives or behavioral
incentives, all as a way to gobeyond self-monitoring to see.
(09:45):
Well, actually, if you do this,self-monitoring is just a tool
for you to become awareness.
Actually, I think in the futureit'd be great to see if you
know, when the behavior changebecomes a habit, actually
self-monitoring is no longerneeded.
So we actually probably don'tneed a consistent
self-monitoring in order to getto where we want to be, unless
(10:07):
you know you have your bloodglucose is out of control again
or you would like to, you know,achieve to a new level of blood.
David Kerr (10:14):
This is really, really exciting stuff.
So what you're saying isputting the effort into
self-monitoring is going to beconfined to the dustbin of
history because everything isgoing to be automated.
And then you're giving peoplerewards, you're showing a
glimpse into their personalhealth future.
(10:35):
If they do this, then a goodthing will happen.
If they don't do that, this isastonishing and exciting at the
same time.
What about people saying, well,hold on a minute, where's my
data going?
I mean, are people saying toyou well, this is all very well,
but I don't want to becontrolled by some multinational
(10:56):
, you know for-profit companythat's just going to make more
money on the back of me.
Are you hearing any of that?
Or is that again something ofhistorical interest only?
Jing Wang (11:09):
Yes, I think the majority of our patients don't
care too much, I have to say,like we actually have done large
field survey on this topic, asa researcher, we're very serious
.
Right, we need to make surepatients understand, through
consent, where we're securelysave your data and we want them
(11:30):
to kind of read all the smallfind information when they sign
up for a commercial app, right,but that's kind of our role as
nurses, as an educator, but inreality, if you ask patients,
well, do they care much?
Well, they care about.
What they care about is will Ihave a better quality of life
and will I live longer?
(11:52):
What other tools are you givingme to help me do that?
And so I think you know, as aresearcher, as a scientist, but
also as a clinician, I think ourrole is to make sure that we do
our job, to communicate withpatients clearly, and that's why
, when I develop tools, I alwayskind of try to be transparent
(12:12):
about what are the risks.
Of this data may end up insomeone else's hand.
We always have to have thatright, that right.
I think it's about beingtransparent and also kind of
working with people likeengineers, computer science and
others to ensure we are actuallypatients' advocates, right?
Patients not necessarily haveall those knowledge, but us, as
(12:34):
healthcare professionals, I takeit that we actually need to
have those knowledge and skillsand to kind of be our patients'
advocate to make sure you knowtheir information will not be
shared with parties or will notbe purchased, or at least we
need to let them know what mayhappen when you know things
(12:54):
happen.
So I don't know if thatanswered your question, but like
, if you kind of ask patients,the majority of them will say I
care less.
In a way, some will payattention, but that's not the
majority.
David Kerr (13:07):
Yeah, we find the same thing.
Patients want to be better andthey're less concerned about
regulations than perhaps we are,but there needs to be a balance
.
David Klonoff (13:19):
Jing, we recently collaborated on a project which
we called the Green DiabetesProject, to see how much waste
people with diabetes generate.
What do you think about thewaste issue for people with
diabetes who use devices?
Jing Wang (13:36):
Yeah, I think all of the digital health-related waste
is an area nobody actually paysmuch attention.
So I'm so glad you knowDiabetes Technology Society and
we get to partner with you tokind of work on a study to bring
this to people's awareness withhow much waste.
We call it waste, but somebodyelse may think, well, it is a
(13:59):
very necessary tool to supportpatient care, but what are the
alternatives?
Right Again, I think from thepatient perspective, they
probably don't have any kind ofknowledge or even like attention
to this matter.
But I do feel like becauseright now, if you look at sort
of the landscape of digitalhealth, is that people are
(14:20):
actually using more technologiesthan sometimes than what they
need to to kind of manage theirconditions.
So, I think, paying attention toall the ways and exploring what
are some alternative optionsthat can actually help us um,
better, both better managedconditions and also kind of
(14:43):
reduce the the from a, you know,manufacturer perspective, and
how can we collaborate withmanufacturers to think about for
all of these tools?
And one example actually, likeright now, CGM Continuous
Glucose Monitor monitorpreviously is not a tool where,
(15:03):
like, everyone can easily accessor it's only reserved for
people, you know, with veryserious conditions.
And now consumers, just likeconsumers and households.
There are companies that arefocused on using CGM for
behavior change.
So even for patients who peoplewho do not have a condition
(15:29):
like diabetes are using CGM tobe healthier or to be fit.
So that's kind of a waste thatnobody ever pay attention and
how can we kind of better worktogether to kind of draw much
attention to it?
David Klonoff (15:43):
Jing, you've spoken about your research.
You're also Dean of the NursingCollege at Florida State.
Could you say something aboutyour work there?
Are you currently recruitingpeople to join you, or what's it
like being a Dean?
Jing Wang (15:56):
Yes, I think the exciting part of being a Dean is
that, like, you get to like,draw the big picture and recruit
work-class talent.
We have recently recruited alot of very successful.
We've recruited a lot ofwork-class researchers and bring
over 100 million NIH fundingand become top in the nation
(16:17):
actually among all the nursingschools.
But what I'm most excited isactually we're building a smart
healthcare suite in our newacademic health center building
where we'll have 11 smart clinicrooms, one smart apartment and
one smart hospital room where wewill train our next generation
of students nursing students,medical students all together to
(16:41):
actually understand thesedigital health tools but
embedded in clinics inpatienthomes.
We're also actually building anactual smart home in a 55 plus
community where we will partnerwith the developer, the
community developer and smarthome technology companies to
(17:03):
kind of reimagine whathome-based care can look like,
because you know we talk abouthospital at home, stipulated by
COVID.
So, as we're kind ofexperiencing this post-COVID era
, what can we do in managingpatient health in their own home
(17:23):
?
That can be a little bit morelike passive monitoring, but
also supporting and connectedwith their healthcare providers.
So, I think all of these thingsthat I'm very excited about,
but also, I think, as a dean, is.
I look at it because I havealways been in this like first
(17:44):
few people who have uh, who doesthings in area of digital
health, and now was a AI.
We actually became the nation'sfirst to launch a master of
science in nursing, with aconcentration in AI applications
in health care, and launched anAI, um, nursing and AI
innovation consortium.
(18:04):
So, like I strongly believe, youknow, we can't just wait until
they graduate and, you know,throw all of these new tools to
them.
Even these tools will change.
I still believe that we need totrain these students when they
are still in medical school ornursing school.
They are still in medicalschool or nursing school so they
(18:30):
understand.
They have this thinking on howto best to support them in their
future roles, where everythingthey do may have AI they may not
know, but has an AI componentin it.
And how can we set theguardrails all together?
A lot of people are on twoextremes One is very pro, one is
very against and, where I seeit, it needs to be somewhere in
the middle where there will beguardrails and things that we
(18:53):
need to pay attention, but wealso need to have the knowledge
about how to leverage AI toautomate some you know laborious
processes and administrativeprocesses.
David Kerr (19:05):
Jen, I just wanted to ask you a little question.
You mentioned about the smarthome for the seniors At the
other end of the spectrum.
Are you also involved indigital health AI for children?
You know toddlers, young peopleas well, because of the
concerns about particularly type2 diabetes, obesity and that
sort of thing.
Jing Wang (19:26):
Yes.
So for the youth and children,actually the majority of our
NIH-funded research portfolioare among US youth and
adolescents, and also we look atfamilies right, including
children.
So some of this we didn't lookat in particular for type 1
(19:47):
diabetes area, but our sort ofuse of digital technology-based
home is really cutting acrossdifferent areas.
We're starting with the 55-pluscommunity because, it happens,
they have the most interest,they want to collaborate very
eagerly, happens they have themost interest, they want to
collaborate very eagerly.
But there are actually othersmart home technologies that
(20:08):
with some of our industrypartners in other areas that are
specifically focused onactually children who have
disabilities and need specialneeds that will benefit from
these smart home technologies.
So we're looking at really, whoare the sort of what I call
most underserved populations,and people always think that
(20:31):
seniors are the generation of.
Well, they don't really usetechnology or they're afraid of
technology.
But they also happen to be thepeople who can benefit the most
and we need to have all thespecialty or skills to help them
and support them.
And my research has always beenprimarily with a senior
population.
(20:51):
But what I find is that, evenfor those who never touched
technology before doing thetimes when the smartphone just
came out within a week or fourweeks.
They get to be pro and theykind of gave me a feeling like,
well, a few seconds, I got thisdone, where four weeks ago it
took me 30 minutes right?
(21:12):
Or we see so much technologythat is like what I call
over-engineered, like, forexample, it's not a critique
with some of the currentwearables, but if you look at
the senior population, theycannot really handle that many
complex details in a little tinywatch.
So how can we have all thespecialty that are focused on
(21:36):
different populations with theirdifferent needs of the
technology With our kids andchildren?
Actually, they are thetechnology helper at home or the
seniors for those that aremulti-generational households.
David Klonoff (21:51):
Well, jing, that's really interesting.
The work you're doing, both inyour research and building a
huge, successful program atFlorida State number one in the
country in NIH grants.
That's fantastic.
I'd like to thank you on behalfof me and Dr Kerr for speaking
with us today.
This podcast is available atthe Apple Store and at Spotify
(22:15):
and we invite people to listento this and we invite people to
return to our next DiabetesTechnology Report.
So thank you and goodbye.
Thank you.
Jing Wang (22:27):
Jane, thank you, thank you everyone.
Welcome to Diabetes Technology Report.
I'm Dr David Klonoff.
I'm an endocrinologist atSutter Health and UCSF.
We have a special guest today.
My co-host, Dr David Kerr, willintroduce himself and we'll ask
her the first questions.
David Kerr (00:29):
Thanks, david, and hello to everyone listening
today.
This is our first DiabetesTechnology Report of 2025.
It's not a happy new year toeveryone and we're beginning
with a bang.
Here We've got a really specialguest, dr Jing Wang, who's
speaking to us from Florida,where the weather's been a
little bit unusual, but, jing,welcome aboard, and we always
(00:53):
like to begin these podcastswith just finding a little bit
about you how you ended up beinginterested in diabetes in
general and technology inparticular.
What kind of led you to thissituation?
Yeah, sure.
Jing Wang (01:08):
Happy New Year everyone and thank you, david
and David, it's such an honor tobe here with both of you and
everyone.
I think I started at Universityof Pittsburgh.
I was a trainee at Universityof Pittsburgh where you know the
diabetes prevention program andlook ahead study, and I was
just kind of solely focused inthis behavior concept of
(01:31):
self-monitoring, which at thetime we're still using paper
diaries and we're comparingpaper diaries with personal
digital assistants.
So that's kind of very naturalfor me to kind of work in the
area of diabetes, diabetesprogression, obesity, diabetes
management.
I have to sort of get myselfinto the technology because my
(01:57):
concept is self-monitoring andby the time I graduate the PDAs
became obsolete.
So my whole area ofself-monitoring went into
smartphones, bluetooth-enableddevices, glucometers to
wirelessly connected glucometersand then incorporating
(02:20):
wearables such as the jawbone atthe time.
So all kinds of differentwearables such as the jawbone at
the time, so all kinds ofdifferent wearables, connected
applications.
So that's kind of how I startedwas a focusing self-monitoring
kind of getting into the wholearea of digital health
technology and I started acouple of research center of
(02:42):
excellence in the area of mobilehealth, connected house, smart
and connected house, and now youcall it, digital health, and we
can also have to just getourselves into this whole what I
call multiple behaviorself-monitoring, because diet,
exercise and both play a role innot only glucose levels but
(03:06):
also weight.
So how these behaviors andweight and glucose intertwine
together with multiple behaviorsand multiple disease outcomes,
because you know our patientsour diabetes patients often have
to manage their weight and someother conditions such as
hypertension.
So we actually end updeveloping a platform where
(03:27):
we're just kind of getting allof these wearables, remote
monitoring devices all togetherand optimize and visualize this
for a patient I have to ask you.
David Kerr (03:37):
I mean, some of those things you've just
mentioned.
It's like a blast from the past.
You know all these differentancient now technologies and
we're now into multimodalmonitoring, to use the jargon.
But what about the view fromthe other side, from people with
diabetes?
What do you find?
Are you finding that people arekind of going, whoa, this is
(03:58):
too much, or whoa, this isreally interesting.
Why haven't we done this before, and what's your feeling about
that?
Jing Wang (04:09):
Yes, so our research has always been grounded with
patient needs.
You know we do a lot ofqualitative research, kind of
interviewing patients and kindof understanding their needs,
and this involvement ofconnected technology kind of all
came from patient needs.
So at the time, at the oldAsian time, you know, the
diabetes educators and patientswould spend the whole visit time
kind of just doing a dietaryrecall for the whole 30 minutes
(04:33):
and kind of the technology with,you know, wearables and
app-based nutrition monitoringkind of.
Our connected platform that wedeveloped actually reduced that
time of recall into less than aminute so that the patients and
the educators actually againstand the counselors can actually
(04:56):
spend the rest of the 29 minutesto actually focus on
individualized education, whatwe call diabetes self-management
education and support, and itis overwhelming.
The other part is well, becauseyou cannot really ignore any
part, both diet and exercise andwhat we find is the best way of
losing weight for diabetespatients and if you do both
(05:19):
right, and even for the diabetesprevention program, look ahead,
you need to look at how bothdiet and exercise work together
so kind of with this, how theevidence supports it, but it's
too much work for patient tomonitor and that's how, like
what we try to actually recently, use digital twin-based ai
(05:39):
tools to make multi-modalself-monitoring simpler.
And what we are doing researchis also trying to see can we
actually use some of thehome-based monitoring to mimic
what is more, like you have toput efforts in entering what you
eat into, like right now, thetechnology where you can have a
(06:00):
refrigerator and we can actuallyyou don't have to do any of the
actual active monitoring bypassive monitoring through your
refrigerator where you get yourfood, or if you have food from
outside, you scan the barcode offood, can make these things
much easier for you.
I still give you thatself-awareness that you will be
(06:23):
able to use to guide yourbehavior change.
David Klonoff (06:26):
Jing currently who's using your platform.
Is it being used by patients inthe clinic or is it a research
tool?
Jing Wang (06:34):
Currently it's a research tool, so we have also
like trying to expand it to bemore a community-based tool, but
so far we actually havesupported over 20 studies.
Right now, um, as it starts andbecause of the capacity and the
tools kept changing, so wewe're actually not like a
married with any particularbrand of device.
(06:57):
So we're trying to make thisplatform where we can.
You know, different projectscan use different like like some
projects monitor salt intakefrom their diets and high blood
pressure with a blood pressuremonitor.
Some use, you know, glucometer,some use continuous glucometer
and add the Fitbit or otherdietary monitoring tools.
David Klonoff (07:19):
Um, some people who use an app will lose
interest.
Much of the research shows thefirst three months people have
good results and then by a year,very few people are using the
product.
What do you do to keep peopleinterested and allow persistence
?
Jing Wang (07:37):
Yeah, actually what?
When I started, even my conceptis self monitoring actually
started?
Actually, I started the conceptwas adherence and in the area
of adherence, what you see iswhat you just described.
It's a shape where people willsuddenly become very interested
in the new thing and then theadherence and the adherence to
(07:58):
self-monitoring will drop.
Actually, in one of our mostrecent studies, what I kind of
briefly mentioned the digitaltwin is that we're using all of
the self-monitoring data todevelop sort of a digital twin
version of the person based onhow their glucose and their
weight will change in responseto their diets and exercise
(08:19):
changes.
And we are actually trying tosend that feedback based on the
digital twin data to thepatients to say, next day, if
you continue with your behaviortoday, your next day is good,
because it's possible to be veryhigh or very low, and to see
that kind of tailored andAI-enhanced message will
(08:40):
actually help patients to bemore adherent, because some of
the self-monitoring and thereneeds to be feedback right the
role in a behavior concept isall about how can we help people
to manage their behaviors sothat they can get to the blood
glucose and weight balance whereit's hard to have.
(09:01):
And if you're just monitoring,um, it kind of it doesn't kind
of get to the behavior changeand kind of, right now, uh, you
have to generate thatself-awareness and also how that
self-awareness in yourenvironment to actually create
that behavior change.
So what we have found althoughself-monitoring itself can be
really boring, um, the digitaltools actually can make it a
(09:24):
little bit more fun, especiallyright now.
A lot of apps can have morelike game-based rewards, even
financial rewards.
You know some insurancecompany-based companies.
They will have those financialincentives or behavioral
incentives, all as a way to gobeyond self-monitoring to see.
(09:45):
Well, actually, if you do this,self-monitoring is just a tool
for you to become awareness.
Actually, I think in the futureit'd be great to see if you
know, when the behavior changebecomes a habit, actually
self-monitoring is no longerneeded.
So we actually probably don'tneed a consistent
self-monitoring in order to getto where we want to be, unless
(10:07):
you know you have your bloodglucose is out of control again
or you would like to, you know,achieve to a new level of blood.
David Kerr (10:14):
This is really, really exciting stuff.
So what you're saying isputting the effort into
self-monitoring is going to beconfined to the dustbin of
history because everything isgoing to be automated.
And then you're giving peoplerewards, you're showing a
glimpse into their personalhealth future.
(10:35):
If they do this, then a goodthing will happen.
If they don't do that, this isastonishing and exciting at the
same time.
What about people saying, well,hold on a minute, where's my
data going?
I mean, are people saying toyou well, this is all very well,
but I don't want to becontrolled by some multinational
(10:56):
, you know for-profit companythat's just going to make more
money on the back of me.
Are you hearing any of that?
Or is that again something ofhistorical interest only?
Jing Wang (11:09):
Yes, I think the majority of our patients don't
care too much, I have to say,like we actually have done large
field survey on this topic, asa researcher, we're very serious
.
Right, we need to make surepatients understand, through
consent, where we're securelysave your data and we want them
(11:30):
to kind of read all the smallfind information when they sign
up for a commercial app, right,but that's kind of our role as
nurses, as an educator, but inreality, if you ask patients,
well, do they care much?
Well, they care about.
What they care about is will Ihave a better quality of life
and will I live longer?
(11:52):
What other tools are you givingme to help me do that?
And so I think you know, as aresearcher, as a scientist, but
also as a clinician, I think ourrole is to make sure that we do
our job, to communicate withpatients clearly, and that's why
, when I develop tools, I alwayskind of try to be transparent
(12:12):
about what are the risks.
Of this data may end up insomeone else's hand.
We always have to have thatright, that right.
I think it's about beingtransparent and also kind of
working with people likeengineers, computer science and
others to ensure we are actuallypatients' advocates, right?
Patients not necessarily haveall those knowledge, but us, as
(12:34):
healthcare professionals, I takeit that we actually need to
have those knowledge and skillsand to kind of be our patients'
advocate to make sure you knowtheir information will not be
shared with parties or will notbe purchased, or at least we
need to let them know what mayhappen when you know things
(12:54):
happen.
So I don't know if thatanswered your question, but like
, if you kind of ask patients,the majority of them will say I
care less.
In a way, some will payattention, but that's not the
majority.
David Kerr (13:07):
Yeah, we find the same thing.
Patients want to be better andthey're less concerned about
regulations than perhaps we are,but there needs to be a balance
.
David Klonoff (13:19):
Jing, we recently collaborated on a project which
we called the Green DiabetesProject, to see how much waste
people with diabetes generate.
What do you think about thewaste issue for people with
diabetes who use devices?
Jing Wang (13:36):
Yeah, I think all of the digital health-related waste
is an area nobody actually paysmuch attention.
So I'm so glad you knowDiabetes Technology Society and
we get to partner with you tokind of work on a study to bring
this to people's awareness withhow much waste.
We call it waste, but somebodyelse may think, well, it is a
(13:59):
very necessary tool to supportpatient care, but what are the
alternatives?
Right Again, I think from thepatient perspective, they
probably don't have any kind ofknowledge or even like attention
to this matter.
But I do feel like becauseright now, if you look at sort
of the landscape of digitalhealth, is that people are
(14:20):
actually using more technologiesthan sometimes than what they
need to to kind of manage theirconditions.
So, I think, paying attention toall the ways and exploring what
are some alternative optionsthat can actually help us um,
better, both better managedconditions and also kind of
(14:43):
reduce the the from a, you know,manufacturer perspective, and
how can we collaborate withmanufacturers to think about for
all of these tools?
And one example actually, likeright now, CGM Continuous
Glucose Monitor monitorpreviously is not a tool where,
(15:03):
like, everyone can easily accessor it's only reserved for
people, you know, with veryserious conditions.
And now consumers, just likeconsumers and households.
There are companies that arefocused on using CGM for
behavior change.
So even for patients who peoplewho do not have a condition
(15:29):
like diabetes are using CGM tobe healthier or to be fit.
So that's kind of a waste thatnobody ever pay attention and
how can we kind of better worktogether to kind of draw much
attention to it?
David Klonoff (15:43):
Jing, you've spoken about your research.
You're also Dean of the NursingCollege at Florida State.
Could you say something aboutyour work there?
Are you currently recruitingpeople to join you, or what's it
like being a Dean?
Jing Wang (15:56):
Yes, I think the exciting part of being a Dean is
that, like, you get to like,draw the big picture and recruit
work-class talent.
We have recently recruited alot of very successful.
We've recruited a lot ofwork-class researchers and bring
over 100 million NIH fundingand become top in the nation
(16:17):
actually among all the nursingschools.
But what I'm most excited isactually we're building a smart
healthcare suite in our newacademic health center building
where we'll have 11 smart clinicrooms, one smart apartment and
one smart hospital room where wewill train our next generation
of students nursing students,medical students all together to
(16:41):
actually understand thesedigital health tools but
embedded in clinics inpatienthomes.
We're also actually building anactual smart home in a 55 plus
community where we will partnerwith the developer, the
community developer and smarthome technology companies to
(17:03):
kind of reimagine whathome-based care can look like,
because you know we talk abouthospital at home, stipulated by
COVID.
So, as we're kind ofexperiencing this post-COVID era
, what can we do in managingpatient health in their own home
(17:23):
?
That can be a little bit morelike passive monitoring, but
also supporting and connectedwith their healthcare providers.
So, I think all of these thingsthat I'm very excited about,
but also, I think, as a dean, is.
I look at it because I havealways been in this like first
(17:44):
few people who have uh, who doesthings in area of digital
health, and now was a AI.
We actually became the nation'sfirst to launch a master of
science in nursing, with aconcentration in AI applications
in health care, and launched anAI, um, nursing and AI
innovation consortium.
(18:04):
So, like I strongly believe, youknow, we can't just wait until
they graduate and, you know,throw all of these new tools to
them.
Even these tools will change.
I still believe that we need totrain these students when they
are still in medical school ornursing school.
They are still in medicalschool or nursing school so they
(18:30):
understand.
They have this thinking on howto best to support them in their
future roles, where everythingthey do may have AI they may not
know, but has an AI componentin it.
And how can we set theguardrails all together?
A lot of people are on twoextremes One is very pro, one is
very against and, where I seeit, it needs to be somewhere in
the middle where there will beguardrails and things that we
(18:53):
need to pay attention, but wealso need to have the knowledge
about how to leverage AI toautomate some you know laborious
processes and administrativeprocesses.
David Kerr (19:05):
Jen, I just wanted to ask you a little question.
You mentioned about the smarthome for the seniors At the
other end of the spectrum.
Are you also involved indigital health AI for children?
You know toddlers, young peopleas well, because of the
concerns about particularly type2 diabetes, obesity and that
sort of thing.
Jing Wang (19:26):
Yes.
So for the youth and children,actually the majority of our
NIH-funded research portfolioare among US youth and
adolescents, and also we look atfamilies right, including
children.
So some of this we didn't lookat in particular for type 1
(19:47):
diabetes area, but our sort ofuse of digital technology-based
home is really cutting acrossdifferent areas.
We're starting with the 55-pluscommunity because, it happens,
they have the most interest,they want to collaborate very
eagerly, happens they have themost interest, they want to
collaborate very eagerly.
But there are actually othersmart home technologies that
(20:08):
with some of our industrypartners in other areas that are
specifically focused onactually children who have
disabilities and need specialneeds that will benefit from
these smart home technologies.
So we're looking at really, whoare the sort of what I call
most underserved populations,and people always think that
(20:31):
seniors are the generation of.
Well, they don't really usetechnology or they're afraid of
technology.
But they also happen to be thepeople who can benefit the most
and we need to have all thespecialty or skills to help them
and support them.
And my research has always beenprimarily with a senior
population.
(20:51):
But what I find is that, evenfor those who never touched
technology before doing thetimes when the smartphone just
came out within a week or fourweeks.
They get to be pro and theykind of gave me a feeling like,
well, a few seconds, I got thisdone, where four weeks ago it
took me 30 minutes right?
(21:12):
Or we see so much technologythat is like what I call
over-engineered, like, forexample, it's not a critique
with some of the currentwearables, but if you look at
the senior population, theycannot really handle that many
complex details in a little tinywatch.
So how can we have all thespecialty that are focused on
(21:36):
different populations with theirdifferent needs of the
technology With our kids andchildren?
Actually, they are thetechnology helper at home or the
seniors for those that aremulti-generational households.
David Klonoff (21:51):
Well, jing, that's really interesting.
The work you're doing, both inyour research and building a
huge, successful program atFlorida State number one in the
country in NIH grants.
That's fantastic.
I'd like to thank you on behalfof me and Dr Kerr for speaking
with us today.
This podcast is available atthe Apple Store and at Spotify
(22:15):
and we invite people to listento this and we invite people to
return to our next DiabetesTechnology Report.
So thank you and goodbye.
Thank you.
Jing Wang (22:27):
Jane, thank you, thank you everyone.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.