Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Artificial Pancreas Systems for Type 1 Diabetes: Perspectives of Two Adult Users, Parent of a User and Healthcare Professionals

Abstract

The artificial pancreas system or an automated insulin dosing system has been the ‘holy grail’ for patients with type 1 diabetes and their caregivers who have over the years wanted to ‘close the loop’ between monitoring of glucose and delivery of insulin. The launch of the Medtronic MiniMed 670G system in 2017 and the subsequent release of the Tandem t:slim with Control-IQ system, the DANA RS pump compatible-CamAPS FX app and the more recent announcement of the Medtronic MiniMed 780G system have come as answers to their prayers. However, in the time taken to develop and launch these commercial systems, creative and ebullient parents of young patients with type 1 diabetes, along with other patients, technologists and healthcare professionals have developed mathematical models as software solutions to determine insulin delivery that in conjunction with compatible hardware have helped ‘close the loop’. Under an umbrella movement #WeAreNotWaiting, they have, as a community, refined and disseminated technologies that are open source and ubiquitously available as do-it-yourself (DIY) closed-loop systems or DIY artificial pancreas systems (APS). There are presently three systems—OpenAPS, AndroidAPS and Loop. We present perspectives of two patients, parent of a patient, and their healthcare providers; the users spanning an age spectrum most likely to use this technology—a child, an adolescent in transitional care and a 31-yr old adult patient, highlighting how looping has helped them self-manage diabetes within the routine of their lives and the challenges they faced.