Computer-Assisted Instruction in Intense Insulin Therapy Using a Mathematical Model for Clinical Simulation With a Clinical Algorithm and Flow Sheet

2002

This "Diabetes Information Technology & WebWatch" column continues the diabetes simulation theme from previous issues and overviews various user experience with the AIDA v4 interactive educational freeware diabetes simulator. AIDA is a diabetes computer program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose (BG) profiles for educational, demonstration, and self-learning purposes. It has been made freely available, without charge, via the Web as a noncommercial contribution to continuing diabetes education. Since its Internet launch in 1996, over 145,000 visits have been logged at the AIDA Website-www.2aida.org-and over 29,000 copies of the program have been downloaded, free of charge. While these statistics may appear impressive, they do not tell the personal story of how people have been making use of the software, and what they actually think about the program. In this respect, this column documents some of the independent user comments about AIDA sent in spontaneously via electronic mail (email) by patients with diabetes and their relatives, as well as by health-care professionals. Comments posted to diabetes newsgroups and diabetes email lists, as well as a selection of those which have been found at other, linked, diabetes Websites are also highlighted. 121

Section: Introduction Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Further User Comments Regarding Usage of an Interactive Educational Diabetes Simulator (AIDA)

2002

“…Also, although other interactive simulators of glucose-insulin interaction in diabetes have been described in the literature, 11,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24] to date these do not seem to have been distributed widely via the Internet, or been made particularly widely available. Furthermore, for a number of these 19,21-23 it would seem that readers are wholly dependent on the authors' own descriptions of their prototypes, since no versions appear to be available for use by others.…”

Section: Aida Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Is Downloading the Free AIDA v4.3a Interactive Educational Diabetes Computer Software? A 1-Year Survey of 3,864 Downloads

2003

AIDA is a free diabetes computer program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose profiles for educational, demonstration, self-learning, and research purposes. To date over 70000 copies of the software have been downloaded from the AIDA Website, www.2aida.org. This column documents a survey of downloaders of the latest release of the program (AIDA v4.3a). The Internet-based survey methodology was confirmed to be robust and reliable. Over a 1-year period (from March 2001 to February 2002) in total 3864 responses were received. During the corresponding period some 8578 actual downloads of the software were independently logged via the same route at the AIDA Website, giving a response rate for this survey of 45%. Responses were received from participants in 66 countries - over half of these (n = 2,137; 55.3%) were from the United States and the United Kingdom. There were 2318 responses (60.0%) received from patients with diabetes and 443 (11.5%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, students, diabetes educators, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. This study highlights considerable interest amongst patients and their relatives to learn more about balancing insulin and diet in diabetes, as well as possibly to get more involved in self-management of insulin dosages. More computer applications that can cater for this interest in diabetes patient self-care need to be developed and made available. The Internet provides an ideal medium for the distribution of such educational tools.

“…While other interactive simulators of glucose-insulin interaction in diabetes have been described in the literature, 7,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] to date these do not seem to have been distributed widely via the Internet, or been made particularly widely available.…”

Section: Aida Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Is Downloading the Freeware AIDA v4.3 Interactive Educational Diabetes Simulator? An Audit of 2,437 Downloads

2002

The purpose of this paper is to report an audit of 2,437 downloads of the AIDA interactive educational diabetes simulator. AIDA is a diabetes computer program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose profiles for educational, demonstration, and self-learning purposes. It has been made freely available, without charge, on the Internet as a noncommercial contribution to continuing diabetes education. Since its launch in 1996 over 200,000 visits have been logged at the AIDA Website-www.2aida.org-and over 37,000 copies of the AIDA program have been downloaded free-of-charge. This report documents an audit of downloaders of the software, with the intended goals of the study being to demonstrate the use of the Internet for auditing and surveying diabetes software users and to confirm the proportion of patients with diabetes and their relatives who are actually making use of the AIDA v4.3 program. The Internet-based survey methodology was confirmed to be robust and reliable. Over a 7 1 / 2 -month period (from mid-July 2000 to early March 2001) 2,437 responses were received. During the corresponding period 4,100 actual downloads of the software were independently logged via the same route at the AIDA Website-giving a response rate to this audit of 59.4%. Responses were received from participants in 61 countries-although over half of these (n 5 1,533; 62.9%) originated from the United States and United Kingdom. Of these responses 1,361 (55.8%) were received from patients with diabetes and 303 (12.4%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, diabetes educators, students, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. This study has confirmed the feasibility of using the Internet to survey, at no real cost, a large number of medical software downloaders/users. In addition, it has yielded up-to-date and interesting data about who are the main downloaders of the AIDA program. 467