Dexcom Manual Calibration – Big Win for Seven Users

Big news: All new DexCom continuous glucose monitoring systems have been approved by the FDA to enable manual entry of blood glucose data during calibration. This feature, aptly named Open Choice, will give DexCom users the ability to use any blood glucose meter to calibrate their DexCom SEVEN units. The SEVEN used to rely exclusively on the OneTouch Ultra meter for transmission of calibration information. diaTribe was thoroughly impressed with this new feature and is pleased to see DexCom paying attention to the patient perspective as they develop their technology. For many whose insurance does not cover strips for the Ultra meter, it is easy to see how this comes as a big positive. Plus, this could mean one less meter to lug around with the rest of our diabetes supplies. With all that said, we note that manually entering blood glucose values increases the chances for a mistake in calibration, though it did seem pretty straightforward when we tried it. A big question: what about current users of DexCom? a. We recently learned that current users will receive a software upgrade as soon as the software is approved by the FDA (likely by this summer). The cost of this upgrade? Free!