My name is Nimesh Porbandarwalla and I’m currently a 2nd year MBA student at SMU – Cox School of Business.
My MBA team is doing a market research project for a class on blood glucose monitors and therefore is interested in gathering information from you about which type of blood glucose monitor you have purchased and currently use, where you purchased your blood glucose monitor and reusable reagents (strips/lancets), and the features of a blood glucose monitor that you value the most. To accomplish this market research we have created a 10 question online survey that should take less than 5 minutes to complete. This survey is completely anonymous and no private data is being collected.
> 7. What percentage of the time do you purchase
> your reusable reagents (paper testing strips)
> from the following sources?
What is a paper testing strip? Reusable?
> 8. How important are the following features of a
> blood glucose monitor?
The exactness of a meter is regulated by the FDA so it is not important.
I am really missing the price here. The price of the glucose test stips that is really important!
To add to the above, I have never in my life purchased a blood glucose meter - they have all been given to me. There is nothing reusable about test strips. Wish I could reuse the ones that give me errors but no - each error is a dollar down the toilet. But most importantly, I use the test strips/meter that my insurance will cover at the lowest cost to me. Accuracy and convenience do not really play any part in what meters are used for most of us.
Thank you for the comments. The paper testing strips should be glucose testing strips. Ya’ll are right there is nothing reusable about testing strips. Finally, I would love to hear what diabetics really want from a blood glucose monitor as that will help our research immensely.
I also have one more question as Holger mentioned the price of the glucose strips are the really important. So if there was a Blood Glucose Monitor that did not use glucose testing strips then how much would you pay for that monitor?
From my perspective: In the year 2008 I used more than 2500 glucose testing stripes. My CareSens package with 500 stripes costs 200€. This means that my insurance company payed 1000€ for one year (2,74€ / day).
Buy scenario: considering the pace of technology the device would be good priced if it works for more than 3 years for the price of 2 years of my test stripes. This translates to 2000€ for this new device. The problem is that German insurance companies will not pay three years ahead and therefore the next scenario should be considered.
Lease scenario: device can be leased for up to 1.80€ per day and will be replaced on the fly (similar to the replacement of pumps). Insurance companies would be comfortable with this offering because they will save money: 1000€ (for stripes) VS 657€ (= 365 * 1,8€ for leasing).
At the end it all depends on your test frequency per day.
I belong to a program called AmMed Direct. Under the agreement to change from getting from my pharmacy and applying it to my deductible, they agreed to bill Medicare and then the balance would go on a special “scholarship.” So, I don’t pay anything for my “drums” or my drums for the Multiclix.
I use the AccuChek Compact Plus. My perfect glucometer would include a disposal for used strips (kind of like it “ate” them); give motivational messages; have the multiclix lancet device attached to the side of it like they have the regular one; one that would somehow “lick” off your finger or draw up all the blood that you produced!
Just to clarify, by “glucose monitor” do you mean a continuous blood glucose monitoring system (CGMS)? These are available, but still require you to test your blood sugar to confirm.
If there existed a dependable one that really did not require us to test our blood sugar, that would be wonderful, but the problem is that is a very difficult thing to produce. It needs to be SO accurate that we will depend on it to stay alive. If it misreads our blood sugar, we can be put into very dangerous situations (with extremely low or high blood sugar). So I think that it will be a while before we can give up testing our blood sugar.
Do you want us to imagine that this already exists when answering the questions about glucose monitor? (You might want to change the wording on the survey because the difference between a glucose meter and a glucose monitor was not clear to me. I think many people with diabetes will not know what you mean by glucose monitor.)
I will fill out the survey once I understand these questions. Do you want people living outside of the USA to fill it out as well? Holger and I live in Europe.
Kristin, when the survey says Glucose Monitors, I mean Blood Glucose Meters not CGMS. Also, I want as many people filling this survey so it does not matter if you are in the US or Europe. Also, if ya’ll know of any other diabetics blogs/forum that I can post this survey on, I would be a big help for me.
Thank you all for your comments, these have been very helpful.
OK, I took the survey. I also think that questions 7 &8 and the same as questions 5 & 6. But maybe I misunderstood something.
In one question you ask us to add up point until we get to 110. It might be easier for people to RANK (from 1-10) what is the most important. Just an idea!
