Grant will enable tribe to use high-tech to monitor diabetics

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

Robert Nakai, Program Manager, NNSDP; Eddie Browning, State Director, USDA; and Peterson Zah, Advisor and Resource Consultant to Space Data from ASU launch a balloon fitted with transreceiver in front of the NNSDP Wellness Center in Window Rock on November 20, 2007. [Courtesy Photo]

WINDOW ROCK — An elderly woman living in a remote area near the Grand Canyon in the Navajo Nation’s Western Agency takes her blood glucose level. Seeing a number that is too high, she takes a Personal Data Assistant and punches in her level and sends it. Within a short time, a health care provider responds to her hogan to check on her.

The scenario envisioned by the Navajo Nation’s Special Diabetes Project will become a reality thanks to a $425,000 grant from the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — Rural Development.

The grant money will be used to purchase and install telecommunication equipment needed to provide access to health care monitoring for rural diabetic patients. The equipment consists of PDAs for the individual clients and the basic installation of additional state-of-the-art telecommunications equipment, according to the USDA-Rural Development.

The Special Diabetes Project will be working with a wireless network communication system that includes high-altitude balloon-borne transceivers which are launched every 12 to 24 hours. The balloons rise to an altitude of 65,000 to 100,000 feet making possible a wide coverage area that encompasses the Navajo Nation.

The set up will allow patients to communicate in real time with their health care providers.

“Data can be sent to the balloon, then it is sent to Phoenix and then sent to us. We will share the information with Indian Health Services,” Robert Nakai, program manager for Special Diabetes, said.

Having this telecommunication system available will help people who cannot find transportation to health care facilities.

“Vital information can be sent on these devices,” he said.
Beginning in January 2008, the Special Diabetes Project will begin dispensing the equipment to approximately 100 diabetic patients in the Western Agency every month.

“Because of the remoteness and rural nature of Western Navajo Agency, the decision was made by the Navajo Nation Special Diabetes Project to use wireless monitors to help patients and health care professionals maintain the regular contact necessary to practice medicine in a way that promotes wellness and quickly responds to the earliest signs of illness,” Special Diabetes public information officer Ray Louis Baldwin said.

Those who receive the devices must be able to converse, read and write in English because they will need to be able to read the glucometer, enter data into a form on the PDA and transmit it. Other criteria will also be considered in choosing who will receive the equipment including remoteness and lack of electricity, for example.

Nakai said that it is a multiyear funded program and will eventually be expanded to the other areas of the Navajo Nation.