Varied & Bespoke Needs of Caregivers: Organizing and Communicating Diabetes Care for Children in Era of DIY

Type 1 diabetes in children is a complex chronic condition thatrequires high levels of coordination among a range of caregiversin order to communicate and organize care for best healthoutcomes. We examined three types of care, at home, at school,and at the clinic, to explore the communication needs of a rangeof caregivers. Not only were there differences between types ofcaregiver, but there were also varied personal preferences forcommunication, different levels of knowledge regardingcaregiving that required different forms of communication, andchanges in child health leading to different care needs andcommunication styles. We frame these findings within the newtrend of diabetes technologies that allow for cloud connectedcommunication in order to show the need to respect varied andindividual communication practices. Technologies that linkcurrent health data over the cloud may not have a one-size-fits-allsolution for all caregivers, however, open-source DIY healthtrends may be a way towards supporting personalizedcommunication needs.