Even with easy notation of pre- or post-prandial readings, whether a patient’s feeling sick or stressed, Bayer’s recent foray into blood sugar measurements begs “What now?”

Even with a pile of great data, (watch for integration with MedTronic, et al.’s continuous glucose monitor) there are no CPT or ICD-9 (maybe ICD-10?) codes for continuously monitoring glucose levels of 400 patients in near real-time, even if it were compatible with xHR systems from GE, Google or Microsoft.

Work being work, few doctors will do it for free.

As for patients, even well motivated ones like the venerable Mr. Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, expect difficulty with the Autoplay function when plugging in the new glucose tester directly into a Windows machine, and that the latest Apple software will bugger compatibility completely. Nevermind Linux.

As in many things clinical these days, this is clearly a step in the right direction, but hindered by lack of interoperability standards and well-defined paths of cash and/or information flow no single product could be expected to address.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574600202639835872.html