Turkcell Healthmetre

Diabetes is a global epidemic. In Turkey it affects 1 in 7 adults and contributes to 1 in 3 deaths. More young people are receiving diagnoses every day. Many become depressed, and skip their treatment routine. Turkcell, Turkey’s leading technology innovator, set out to make a difference with a brand new way to record diabetes data: a mobile app. Turkcell is the leading mobile operator and technology innovator in Turkey. It has 36 million subscribers and is well positioned to roll out such a solution to a mass audience in partnership with Turkey’s Ministry of Health. Through brand popularity and awareness, Turkcell and R/GA London wanted to create an innovative digital platform that could offer support to diabetes patients. And so Healthmetre was developed. With Healthmetre, Turkcell wanted to mainly target their younger demographic, as well as the broad market of smart-phone owners. The goals are to increase awareness of the condition amongst the general population as well as for actual patients to improve treatment compliance, motivation and reduce long-term effects of diabetes. The solution is comprised of a wireless blood meter that connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone and automatically logs readings to the app. The app maps the blood level readings to images from Instagram creating an immediate visual diary for the condition. It can also publish the images with overlaid blood measurements to social channels with ease. The solution has been tested in a year-and-a-half long trial with 200 patients at Istanbul University. The results have exceeded expectations. Treatment compliance increased by 54%, blood sugar levels decreased by 27%, and complication forecasts decreased by 37%.