France: Discover myDiabby

With 10,000 remote consultations carried out for nearly 1,000 pregnant women enrolled every month in France, how did myDiabby become the largest telemedicine programme in the country?

The platform has the potential to revolutionise the management of this chronic disease that affects an increasing number of people. It’s the first telemedicine platform devoted to gestational diabetes (DG) monitoring, letting a doctor check in with patients, even if they are at opposite ends of the country while ensuring privacy and security of patient data.

According to Delphine Callot, Vice-President of the French Association of Diabetic Women, "myDiabby reduces the high frequency of consultations and helps to decrease the time spent in hospitals, a source of stress for patients with gestational diabetes. It is also an improvement of the quality of life during pregnancy: avoiding traveling when you have several children is valuable. For the patient there is a gain in comfort but it also  reduces the overall cost of her pregnancy care."

Her views have been echoed by other experts in the field of diabetes. See their testimonials. Thanks to its success, myDiabby has also been made available to all patients living with type 1 and 2 diabetes as of March 2017.

The programme was launched in April 2015 by the start-up be4life, with the support of Lilly France and co-built with health professionals, e-health specialists and diabetes follow-up experts. The multi-stakeholder approach used to develop the programme has enabled the platform to become more efficient, helping to increase support for patients and motivating doctors and healthcare professionals to expand the scope of the tool.

At Lilly we are committed helping to improve people’s daily lives, and innovations that use digital technology to personalise and simplify the management of diabetes can help achieve this. That's why we have been partners of myDiabby for almost 3 years.

What next? The results already achieved through this App for patients with gestational diabetes are impressive, and widening the scope to the management of type 1 and type 2 diabetes is a natural evolution that we are very excited about! The myDiabby team is also working together with the French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de santé - HAS) to explore how the App could be applied to other disease areas. This is a vital part of assessing the value of e-health programmes for the future of European healthcare systems and better meeting the needs of people living with chronic diseases.