Diabetes Ireland is delighted to announce the arrival of the multi-award-winning DigiBete Self-Management App and Video Platform in Ireland.

Following a successful pilot project in Limerick University Hospital, Diabetes Ireland and DigiBete have spent the past few months training other paediatric diabetes teams on how to use the App to educate their families on managing Type 1 diabetes.

The primary aim of the App is;

• to improve care for children and young people with diabetes by helping them manage their condition more effectively.
• provide an easy cost-free communication stream for hospital paediatric diabetes teams to engage with families to provide clinical advice and information.

The App supports children and adolescents with Type 1 diabetes and their families by giving them a place to organise their diabetes appointments, and ongoing care, and receive access to relevant educational resources. Families will be able to access age-appropriate diabetes information such as quizzes, videos, and food & exercise support.

Families will also be able to develop a record of personalised information about their diabetes care, set reminders of their clinic appointments and receive invites to various family events, education workshops and much more.

A huge benefit for paediatric diabetes teams is that they will be able to share accurate and timely clinical advice and information directly with their families, send appointment reminders and share diabetes management advice such as sick day rules and good care reminders in a matter of minutes.

Diabetes Ireland CEO Kieran O’Leary said “We are delighted to make DigiBete available to the families of the 3,000 children and adolescents living with Type 1 diabetes in Ireland. We feel this is a fantastic investment that supports children and young people with diabetes and their families and paediatric diabetes teams nationwide. It will also allow us to reach families more directly to offer our services and extend invites to our events.”

To date, 11 of the 18 paediatric diabetes clinic teams have completed their training (list available list available at https://www.diabetes.ie/living-with-diabetes/child-diabetes/diabetes-digibete/)

To access the App, families need to contact their diabetes team to obtain a code and easy self-registration instructions and we would encourage all families to speak to their team today or at their next appointment.

We hope the remaining paediatric diabetes teams register for DigiBete in the coming months so that it will be available to all families by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, families can access the various education resources on the platform by visiting https://www.digibete.org/

Maddie Julian, DigiBete said “The app is already used widely in the UK with over 90% of paediatric and young adult clinics using the App and 80% of patients registered and using the resources. I want to make access to the app as widely available as we can, and I am excited to be collaborating with Diabetes Ireland to make it freely available to all families in Ireland”.

Diabetes Ireland has partnered with West Pharmaceutical Services, a global leader in innovative solutions for injectable drug administration to support the rollout of DigiBete in Ireland.  “We are excited to partner with Diabetes Ireland to help bring this important resource to families of children and young people living with diabetes in Ireland, which will enable them to access support and manage their condition more effectively,” said Aileen Kinsella, VP & General Manager, Global Pharma at West. “West has played a significant role in helping to deliver diabetes care globally for over 90+ years and continues to be a leading global supplier of containment solutions for the major injectable drug manufacturers in the diabetes market.”