The Role of Design as Technology Enabler: A Personalized Integrated Predictive Diabetes Management System Venere Ferraro (&) and Venanzio Arquilla Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, Via Durando 38/A, Milan, Italy {venere.ferraro,venanzio.arquilla}@polimi.it Abstract. According to the International Diabetes Federation, in Europe 59.8 million people have diabetes and the number will rise to 71.1 million adults by 2040. Research on new models of care organisation demonstrates that advanced technologies and ICT systems and services may have the potentiality to respond to the increasing burden of diabetes and the complexity of managing it, and, in doing so, to contribute to the sustainability of health and care systems. In this paper we propose the development of a new Personalized Integrated Predictive Diabetes Management System, based on a design-driven approach in contrast with the technology–driven one generally used in medical field. The Novel System here presented is called Dia_Friend, an integrated care models, oriented to the needs of the user and focused on the way technology is used and shaped for him, instead of on the mere instrumental use of it. Keywords: Design-driven approach Á Technology Á User experience Á Diabetes 1 Introduction Diabetes mellitus represents a significant burden on individuals and healthcare systems in the European Union and beyond. In the world 415 million adults have diabetes and by 2040 this will rise to 642 million. Type 2 diabetes accounts for approximately 95% of diabetes cases in adult patients and about 20% of them are under insulin treatment. The management of insulin therapy is indeed often problematic due to the several variables that affect glucose homeostasis and hence exogenous insulin requirement; the most important are food, physical activity, stress, and illness. Therefore, patients under insulin treatment often suffer for severe glucose oscilla- tions and hyperglycaemic or hypoglycaemic episodes. Hypoglycaemia, in particular, can disrupt many everyday activities and cause well-recognized neurological events such as coma and seizures. Despite several emerging technologies have been developed, the management of diabetes is still anchored to traditional pathways. ICT services, for example, are not decision-supporting and not empowering the patients to the self-management of the disease. Indeed we want to develop a Novel System, DIA_Friend, thanks to which we are willing to re-design a smart health and care systems to develop integrated care models that are more closely oriented to the needs of patients and elderly: © ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2017 P. Perego et al. (Eds.): MobiHealth 2016, LNICST 192, pp. 392–397, 2017. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-58877-3_49