Peterson Health Technology Institute To Complete New Evaluation of Digital Diabetes Management Solutions

The Peterson Health Technology Institute (PHTI) will conduct a new evaluation of digital diabetes management tools for people with type 2 diabetes, assessing both their clinical effectiveness and economic impact. Since PHTI’s first evaluation of diabetes solutions in March 2024, the field has changed in meaningful ways: increased adoption and coverage of GLP-1 medications and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) have led to a broader range of solutions available to patients, health plans, employers, and providers. This evaluation, which will be published in 2027, will assess the impact of digital diabetes solutions that integrate this expanded set of treatment options, in addition to previously assessed technologies like noncontinuous glucose monitors.

The United States faces a persistent diabetes crisis. About one in eight adults in the United States—more than 40 million Americans—have diabetes, and 90% to 95% have type 2 diabetes. Diabetes cost the U.S. healthcare system $413 billion in 2022 and is the seventh leading cause of death in the country; one in four healthcare dollars spent in the United States goes toward treating patients with the disease. In our annual survey of healthcare purchasers, diabetes consistently ranks as a top area of interest.

The digital diabetes management sector has continued to attract significant investment—companies in this space have raised more than $1 billion since PHTI’s previous assessment in 2024. Digital diabetes management solutions now integrate data from CGMs and support GLP-1 use, in addition to noncontinuous glucose monitors. The changes in standard diabetes management, new coverage expansions, and the evidence that has emerged since 2024 are together driving PHTI’s decision to complete a new assessment of this area.

“When we released our 2024 evaluation, people were disappointed to learn that widely-used digital diabetes solutions were not meaningfully improving clinical outcomes for patients,” said Caroline Pearson, Executive Director of PHTI. “That evaluation remains one of our most widely read, and we continue to receive more questions about it than any other. PHTI assessments are meant to drive better innovation, and it is encouraging that the landscape today appears to have improved. We are eager to see if these digital solutions have evolved to better serve patients.”

The 2024 assessment evaluated eight widely used solutions that track and manage blood glucose with a noncontinuous glucometer and found that they did not deliver meaningful clinical effectiveness and that they increased healthcare spending. That category of tools represents a narrower set of approaches than what purchasers are considering today.

The new evaluation is expected to be released in 2027, approximately three years after the initial report, as part of PHTI’s ongoing series of independent evaluations of digital health technologies. Other PHTI reports have assessed products for gastrointestinal conditions, opioid use disorder, depression and anxiety, hypertension management, and musculoskeletal care.