Interestingly, not only do I not see any mention of the Basal-IQ (not surprising), but I also don’t see any mention of the pump being upgradable remotely.
Is this something the t:slim had in the US form the get-go? Or did the pump get approved as a standard pump first and then get the upgradability approved and “activated” as a feature?
I’m in British Columbia. BC literally just started covering pumps for adults over 25 this summer. At the moment they cover the OmniPod as the “preferred” pump and Medtronic 630G as the second option. Hopefully both the Medtronic 670G and t:slim get approved for coverage soon (weird that they got approved by Health Canada within days of one another). Though I have extended health benefits, so if it’s going to take another year, I’ll just go through my insurance benefits.
@Jen
The X2 pump comes standard with the ability for remote upgrades.
However the Basal-IQ was not part of the submission to Canada Health.
The pump will be shipped with the update from last year already installed which was the G5 integration.
Although the Basal-IQ was initially designed (and FDA approved) to work with both the G5 and the G6, Tandem made the decision (post FDA approval) to only support the G6 with the Basal-IQ functionality.
As I understand and from looking at the Dexcom for Canada website, the G6 is not yet approved in Canada. I expect that has to happen prior to the Tandem Basal-IQ update being approved.
The Tandem t:slim X2 w/G5 was submitted in February to Canada Health. Obviously the approval process takes a fair amount of time. Maybe the G6 and Basal-IQ approvals will move faster but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.
EDIT: The Canada version of the X2 will obviously not be a simple clone of the software as the pump must support both English and French. I assume the date and time format will be standard for Canada. The units of the cgm display should also be what Canadians are familiar with. Not huge changes but also not an exact replica of the US version.
I guess I’m just slightly worried that they’re not hyping remote updates as a feature. It’s everywhere in the US marketing material. I hope that they didn’t approve the pump without the upgradability feature. We have seen this with many other products, i.e., the Precision Neo that can test ketones in Canada but not the US, or the Dexcom G4 that has the Share feature in the US but not Canada. I’m sure I’m just being paranoid!
Possible.
The update itself would have to be approved in any event.
So either way, an approval (additional wording) right now would really only apply to the concept.
I did try looking up the exact wording from Canada Health on the approval but could not locate it. Either I am not searching properly for Canada Health approval related documents (which I think I am as I saw the documents related to other devices) or it takes time for the documents to be available to the public online.
It stops being paranoi when you are proved to be correct time and time again.
EDIT: I will replay the recent Tandem conference and listen carefully. I remember hearing about the Basal-IQ going to Canada. But not enough to relay exactly what was said. I will try to remember to reply back here with an exact quote which I am sure I can find.
Not a stripped model but definitely not identical. Canada Health required it to be customized for Canada which are the obvious things (as mentioned above) like dual language support for English and French and likely the date/time/BG units.
