These technologies allow for closer monitoring of their daily status, and assistance in guiding them in their daily care. Developing the appropriate tools and helping patients to use them regularly and consistently are continuing challenges in the drive toward providing cost effective, long-term care to chronic disease patient groups such as diabetics. Glucometers for daily blood glucose tracking are one important and needed tool but encouraging their use is difficult. However, almost all require the invasive procedure of drawing blood and placing it on a strip from which the glucose level is measured. This very regular procedure can be difficult and painful.
Alternatives using non-invasive procedures measure glucose levels in, for instance, saliva or urine.
However, these alternatives have been noted to be less accurate than the more common blood glucose measurement. The purpose is to encourage patients to use the tools and obtain needed tracking measurements on a very regular basis. Educational improvements . Providing enabling technologies such as noninvasive, easy to use tracking mechanisms is only a first step toward assisting patients in self management routines. Software technologies are often packaged with commercial glucometers and other are available on the Internet which can enable more computer literate users to graph and track their daily or weekly readings.