The pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has developed a type 2 diabetes tablet that replaces injections, making it easier for people with diabetes to live life as normally as possible. Because of the importance of taking the tablet correctly, always after an eight-hour fasting period, Novo Nordisk has developed ’Morning routine’, an app designed to help people with type 2 diabetes to get started with their new everyday life by supporting them in establishing the habit of taking their daily diabetes tablet.

THE CONCEPT OF THE APP

The main purpose of the app is to help type 2 diabetics start each day on the right foot and make the diabetes tablets a natural part of their daily morning routine. As such, the app sends a daily notification to remind users to take their tablet every morning."

The app also provides useful tips, answers frequently asked questions and advises users on how to take the diabetes tablet correctly. The tablet must be taken on an empty stomach and with a small amount of water (no more than 120 ml). A stopwatch in the app counts down from 30 minutes once the user takes their tablet, reminding them not to eat, drink or take any other form of medication for the first 30 minutes after taking the tablet.

A MODEL FOR BUILDING NEW HABITS

According to the transtheoretical model (TTM), an individual progresses through several different stages of change when creating new habits. Each stage has an associated strategy for how best to motivate and activate the user to progress to the next stage. Taking a new type of medicine in a new way requires a bigger change than one might think.

At Shortcut, we have used the model to assess which stage the user is at in the process of establishing a new habit. Based on strategies tailored to the respective stages, this enables us to target and tailor what the app communicates to the user, and as such, we can effectively support the user from start to finish in the process of establishing this new habit. If the user is in the initial phase, a specific type of messaging is relevant, whereas the communication is completely different in the final phase or in the case of dropout.

THE APP DOES NOT COLLECT DATA

One of the major challenges in relation to the development of the app has been adhering to GDPR requirements, since the data from the app are categorized as highly sensitive personal data relating to the users’ health.

Novo Nordisk has never intended to collect or analyze data. The sole purpose of the app has been to offer a helpful tool to support type 2 diabetics who have been prescribed a daily GLP-1 analog diabetes treatment in tablet form from Novo Nordisk by a doctor. Novo Nordisk has no associated backend or server for the app, which means that the app knows absolutely nothing about its users. The users’ data are only available to them.

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