Empowered citizen 'health hackers' who are not waiting

Abstract

Due to the easier access to information, the availability of low cost technologies and the involvement of well educated, passionate patients, a group of citizen 'Health Hackers', who are building their own medical systems to help them overcome the unmet needs of their conditions, is emerging. This has recently been the case in the type 1 diabetes community, under the movement #WeAreNotWaiting, with innovative use of current medical devices hacked to access data and Open-Source code producing solutions ranging from remote monitoring of diabetic children to producing an Artificial Pancreas System to automate the management and monitoring of a patient's condition. Timothy Omer is working with the community to utilise the technology already in his pocket to build a mobile- and smartwatch-based Artificial Pancreas System.