Worcester Polytechnic Institute to develop smartphone application for patients with advanced diabetes, foot ulcers

WORCESTER, Mass. — An interdisciplinary research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is slated to develop a smartphone application that will help patients with advanced diabetes and foot ulcers.

WPI announced it received a $1.2 million award from the National Science Foundation to create the app, which will be wirelessly integrated with a personal glucose meter and scale and would track and archive blood-sugar levels and weight, as well as use the phone's camera to capture and analyze images of foot ulcers, which are potentially dangerous complications that affect people with advanced, uncontrolled diabetes, WPI said.

The four-year project will be organized through WPI's Healthcare Delivery Institute in collaboration with diabetes and wound care specialists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

"This is an ambitious project that we hope will create a useful tool for people who are dealing with advanced diabetes," said Diane Strong, one of the project's leaders, who is a professor in WPI's School of Business. "We appreciate the National Science Foundation's support for our approach to combine technology development and clinical expertise into a unified team to address this challenge."

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