An innovative AI-powered platform for personalised, adaptive diabetes education, aiming to improve users' chances of meeting key glucose management targets

SmartStart is a UK-based digital health SME led by Melissa Holloway (CEO and project lead), David Powell (CTO and technical lead) and Gabriella Giles (project manager).

Currently, education on diabetes management is typically delivered face-to-face on an ad-hoc basis by healthcare professionals, many of whom feel they have insufficient time to properly support and educate their patients. However, there are no standardised automated assessments of individual patients' learning. This makes personalisation to patients' unique needs challenging and undermines their prospects of achieving glucose control targets.

These issues not only impact people with diabetes but also healthcare services and economies. The NHS spends billions of pounds annually treating diabetes complications largely preventable with informed self-management. With global diabetes prevalence expected to rise at an annualised rate of 3.31%, total diabetes-related health expenditure expected to pass the trillion pound mark by 2030, and a persistent shortage of healthcare professionals, it is vital to address the lack of access to personalised digital diabetes education.

SmartStart is aiming to address this need by developing the first mobile-first adaptive learning platform for diabetes education, powered by AI. SmartStart's platform will take patients' diabetes type, treatment plan and engagement into account and facilitate automated access to culturally relevant information. The platform will also assess patients' knowledge and relay specific data to healthcare professionals, enabling them to monitor their patients' progress in-between appointments and tailor conversations on diabetes management.

By offering scalability and knowledge assessment, SmartStart's platform will significantly enhance the efficiency of diabetes care and could more than double the proportion of people with diabetes meeting their key glucose management targets. It will also enable healthcare providers to reach more patients by reducing the number of face-to-face appointments required. The platform also supports the goals of the government's Back to Work plan.