Tuesday, April 29, 2008

OneTouch UltraLink meter

We finally have a replacement wireless meter for the Minimed Paradigm insulin pumps. The new model is the OneTouch UltraLink meter.

It uses existing OneTouch Ultra test strips, with 5 seconds before you have a reading. The meter lets you flag readings as before or after meal so you can get these averages. It stores up to 500 readings and runs on 2 AAA batteries. For more details read the 90-page user's manual (PDF).

The meter is now being shipped with new Medtronic Paradigm insulin pumps. Those of you who already have a Paradigm pump will have to wait a little longer.

According to the Medtronic FAQ page for this meter
... we plan on sending U.S. customers who own a MiniMed Paradigm 512, 712, 515, or 715 insulin pump a OneTouch® UltraLink™ Meter at no charge later this year.
Minimed gives you a way to find out when you'll get your meter.

This meter is only available to US customers. Outside the US, the replacement meter will be from Bayer. Currently there's no word on the release date for the Bayer wireless meter.

If you have, or want to use, the OneTouch diabetes management software you'll need the latest version (2.3.2). You'll also need to download the newest meter driver to your PC so the UltraLink can be recognized.

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Bernard @ 11:08 AM 14 Comments Links to this post  

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Medtronic to change meters it will work with

Now this is an interesting development.

According to a Medtronic press release, Medtronic and Bayer will work together to distribute a new blood glucose meter for Medtronic patients outside the US. Originally I missed the fact that within the US, Medtronic has made a similar agreement with LifeScan. Thanks Kevin and Amy for pointing this out.

The new meter for those in Canada and Europe will be based on the Bayer Contour and will transmit results to Minimed insulin pumps and the Guardian REAL-time CGMS.

The new US meter will be based on the OneTouch platform. I wonder whether they'll use a version of the more stylish OneTouch UltraMini, the Ultra2 or something completely new because of the need to include the circuitry for wireless transmission.

And once again, I hope that one or more of these three companies (Medtronic, Bayer, or LifeScan) will finally decide to work towards a standard format for representing diabetes data.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Bernard @ 10:55 PM 3 Comments Links to this post