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“Alexa, ask T1Resources, what is….”

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During the Christmas break whilst configuring my new Amazon Echo to use the already existing Nightscout Alexa integration, my Developer’s mind was curious how these Alexa ‘skills’ were created. I’d need an idea though, but what? What could I do? All the skills existed. Ok, let’s forget this idea.

Hours later I was putting some coding changes into the Diabetes/Tech Dictionary of terms on T1Resources.UK.

I realised THIS would be my Alexa project. It would be great if someone could say ‘Alexa, ask T1Resources, what is Looping’, or WeAreNotWaiting, or AMA, or ISF etc..

And now they can.

You can start off saying ‘Alexa, ask T1Resources, what is…’.
You can say ‘Alexa, ask T1Resources, tell me a random word’.
Or even perhaps – just for fun – ‘Alexa, ask T1Resources, when will I be cured’.
Ask about any of the acronyms found used with the DIY looping systems, like ‘AMA’, ‘flash’, ‘putty’ or ‘SMB’.
Ask about standard diabetes terms like ‘ISF’, ‘CR’, or ‘bolus’.
Have some fun asking what is ‘rage bolus’, ‘unicorn’, ‘dana’, ‘chapstick’ or ‘leaky reps’.

You can ask what Nightscout is, or #WeAreNotWaiting or Looping, as I am here:

Adding the T1Resources Skill to your Echo

t1resources alexa>Within you Amazon Alexa phone app:
– click the menu bars in the top left
– choose Skill & Games
– click the search icon
– enter T1Resources
– click T1Resources to view the skill info
– enable the skil
– you’re ready to try this on you Amazon Echo, or with your phone app.

T1Resources.UK’s Dictionary of Diabetes/Tech Terms

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Back in October whilst standing in front of 200 health care professionals at the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, a not-so-immaculately timed* scheduled tweet announced my latest project as I presented about it to the audience*

t1resources dictionary announcement
*I was ahead in my presentation by two minutes. Damn!

Earlier in 2018 Dr Anna Dover tweeted about trying to find out what all the terms used by the WeAreNotWaiting community meant. It seemed like a good project and surely it would only take a day or two, right? Nothing ever goes quite as planned and knowing that I wanted to announce it as my presentation I hurriedly started writing it a couple of weeks before.

It turns out writing the web site for the dictionary was no problem at all, but getting all the definitions live was; I thought there would only be 50 or so and now in January we stand at over 270. It became quite difficult to determine what was just tech words and what also might be helpful, so I started putting lots of stuff in. Plus I’ve added some terms just for fun.

Here’s a sample look at the dictionary, where I’ve done a search for OpenAPS, which is highlighted in green and has the all related terms underneath. On the left is the latest 5 terms added to the dictionary, plus a random term for you to learn about.
t1resources dictionary

You can find the dictionary under , Start Here, Diabetes & Tech Dictionary, or just go via its quick link http://bit.ly/t1rdictionary.

If there are any terms not listed click the ‘Want us to add a new definition?’ link and say what you would like to find out about.
If there are any definitions wrong click the icon to the right of each explanation and let me know what to change.

A note about Open Source: I’d initially imagined this would be an open source project but with a lack of understanding about getting started with Open Source development with my personal development environment I just coded it up, in private. One day when I have a bit of time I’ll change that, but in the meantime if you want to get access to the data please contact me.

Thanks for Paul Niven and Dr Anna Dover for the help and inspiration with this project.

T1Resources – hopefully a good place to start

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That brief comment Partha made to Mike about discussing a new idea got me intrigued.
“If I can help, let me know” was my reply as we left the TalkT1 event in January.
A few weeks later that idea was discussed between a few of us and so started the project which became T1Resources: a new web site for Type 1 Diabetes information, where linked content would be reviewed by both a health care professional (HCP) and either a person with diabetes (PWD) or a parent of a child with Type 1, like me.
T1Resources.uk

A new idea?

There’s already so much information out there on the web but who knows what is valid, what is inline with clinical/medical advice, what isn’t, what’s just plain wacky and finally what’s that never-going-to-work-Type-1-cure-with-cinnamon.
T1Resources aims to address that issue by having links to useful information, with each link being reviewed by both one HCP and one PWD/parent.

A project with some backing

To work well and be effective this new site would need to get some decent (non-financial) backing, so Sophie – the project lead – started contacting many of the UK Diabetes industry charities and groups such as Diabetes UK, JDRF and INPUT.
So far it’s got the backing of two of the main charities and many of the groups frequented by the UK’s leading Consultants, Doctors and health care professionals. It’s early days so hopefully more will follow.

Reviewing the resources

Each HCP/PWD review is done separately from one another and it is then decided whether or not that resource is added. I’m not going to blog about the process as it’s constantly evolving at the moment.
In short if both HCP and PWD think the resource is valuable it will be added, if both say it’s rubbish it won’t be added. Anywhere in between and the editorial team will step in.
Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that.

Choosing the resources

Initially the team compiled a list of potentially usefull resources, several hundred were reviewed, many were rejected, the remaining were reviewed properly and one by one added to the site – something we’re still doing actually.
But that’s not the vision for T1Resources, the vision is that this resource is for PWDs/HCPs, by PWDs/HCPs, so there’s a page for suggesting a new resource to be reviewed/added. Not all suggestions will be added but each will be reviewed.

A few “thank you”s from me

To everyone involved in this project up to now and in the future, this couldn’t work without a lot of dedication. From the tiniest of ideas to hopefully a very useful web site, I look forward to seeing this site grow.
To Sophie for leading this project and tying it all together, this never could have happened without your input.
To Mike for all your tireless work. I doubt any of us really know just how many hours you’ve put into this, of the work you’ve given up to do ‘just another bit’, to the family events you’ve now doubt missed out on. I love design of T1Resources – apart from the bits I don’t 😉 Hopefully you can put your feet up soon for a little rest.

DISCLOSURE
In my usual Pay It Forward stance all my time spent on this project has been free, same for everyone. Even Mike has paid for the site/hosting himself, although I sincerely hope he’ll be getting that money back soon.