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Category: Insulin Pump

Medtronic Customer Service

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Back in January when I had the pleasure to attend the Medtronic Diabetes Advocate Forum, one of the focus areas was the Medtronic Customer Service and their StartRight program.  During the presentation, I was very excited about how much effort was being put into the Medtronic customer service team.  In the past, I have had some bad experiences with customer service.  However, Medtronic was the first medical company that actually would allow an individual rep to email me directly, and for those that know me, email is my ONLY form of communication.

When I started back up on the pump trial a couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call, voicemail and email follow up from the StartRight team to make sure that I had all of my supplies delivered, I prepared for my training and to see if I had any additional questions or concerns.  After the training occurred and I started on the pump, I received another follow up a few days later to see if there were any questions or concerns again about being on the pump or Enlite sensor.

I think that this is a great way to handle a new customer being on a product.  First, making sure that they have everything they need to get started and then provided some follow up support after they have been using the product for a few days.

Obviously, I live on social media and when I have complaints or issues that I need taken care of, I use social media to attempt to communicate with a company.  I actually prefer doing business with a company that will communicate via social or email instead of those that always just want to call and discuss things over the phone.  Have I mentioned I hate being on the phone yet?

Medtronic has been doing an amazing job with their social media customer service.  After the first few days of being on the sensor, I mentioned on Twitter that I didn’t tape the sensor down properly, so I received a reply on Twitter asking if there were any specific questions that I had, and then was provided a link to the Medtronic support page that provided more details about the taping of the sensor….perfect.

medtronic-tweet

Then, it got better the next day.  I then had an email from Medtronic titled – Additional Tape Tips.

medtronic-email

This is customization at its finest.  Although this was a pre-formulated email, it was addressed to me and made it feel customized and unique to my situation and my issues (PR companies, take note!)

The Naming of the 530G as an Artificial Pancreas

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

I know that I am a little late to posting my thoughts and views from the Medtronic Diabetes Advocate Forum, but better late than never.  There has been a lot of great posts and follow-ups out there to read to keep you busy.  The first topic that I wanted to touch base on was the usage of the phrase artificial pancreas and some of the backlash that Medtronic received when using that phrase for the 530G Enlite System.

When it comes to naming of things, marketing, etc. I am not too concerned with a name that is used.  I completely understand the backlash however, because of the false hope that it gives to people who hear or see the name Artificial Pancreas.  On the other hand, I am a firm believer that it is your own personal responsibility to understand the tools that you are using to manage your diabetes and to do your research.  One look at the 530G system and you would know that it’s not a true, fully closed loop artificial pancreas, but it’s a system that is helping to get closer to the end goal.

What was nice to hear was that Medtronic admitted to the mistake and also understood the backlash and made the comment that they would put more time into naming their systems.  VP of regulatory compliance, Mark McDonnell said “we’ve heard you about the term artificial pancreas”

I know that I was not alone when I say, “I don’t care what you call it, make it work and make it accurate”

I would much rather the extra time that is spent on the naming of the product to be spent on testing the accuracy.

Now, enough with the naming part of the 530G, and I encourage the debate, because I agree that the naming could be better, but also am not too upset about it.

One of the features that the 530G system utilizes to get it closer to being an artificial pancreas, is the low glucose suspend, which will suspend the pump when your blood sugar is approaching your low level that you have set up with your doctor.  This feature is great for those that go low in the middle of the night, but may not feel that they are low or do not hear the CGM beeping, vibrating or whatever other song and dance it does when you’re going low.

As somebody that doesn’t go low too often in the middle of the night, and when I do, I have had the benefit of recognizing it and being able to wake up and correct, the low suspend is not as important to me as a high glucose insulin delivery feature would be.  That is how to come closer to closing the loop and being an artificial pancreas.  Catch the spike in a BG and dose insulin as needed, but I know there are a lot of dangerous “what if’s” that come into play here, but that is where the R&D will help.

I cannot remember which Medtronic employee said this, but the comparison to a fully closed loop system and an airplane was made by saying, “Full closed loop system is like an airplane on auto pilot..there’s still a pilot there to make decisions and provide input”

The bottom line of all this discussion on the 530G and it being named an Artificial Pancreas is this. Let’s get the product where it needs to be, make it work, make it accurate, make it accessible, educate the end users and the HCP’s, and then less worry about what we should call the wonderful technology.

Asante SNAP Trial Beginning

Chris Stocker

I was approached a couple of months ago to start a trial for the Asante SNAP Insulin Pump. As you may recall, I have stopped using my Medtronic pump about 6 months ago and have been on MDI.  This will be my first time pumping since May.  I chose to wait until now to do the trial because I knew that I had my honeymoon approaching and I didn’t want to be on a trial insulin pump in another country.

In order to get started, I have to regroup and figure out all of my old pump settings as a starting point.  This is going to be a great test for the pump, because I will need to be testing my basal rates and carb ratios and sensitivity levels because I know they have changed from 6 months ago when I stopped pumping.

My training is later today, so from now until the end of the trial, you will be seeing a lot of posts, tweets, Facebook posts, Google+‘s and any other thing I use to share the info.

Wishing myself a happy pumping experience.