Truckers’ Health Adaptative Technology (T.H.A.T.) Study Evaluates the Impact of Digital Virtual Models of Care on the Health of Truck Drivers

Professional truck drivers are essential workers in our economy that face significantly higher risk of diabetes and related health conditions due to the nature of their profession

Dexcom, Inc. November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, time to bring attention to the prevalence and risk of diabetes within our diverse Canadian population, and to profile innovative strategies for prevention and management. In this context, Dexcom Canada is pleased to announce its participation in the Truckers’ Health Adaptive Technology (T.H.A.T.) project, as a digital heath technology partner, in support of improving health and safety outcomes of professional truck drivers with the introduction of real-time, data-guided virtual care and coaching.

Professional truck drivers are essential workers in our economy that face significantly higher risk of diabetes and related health conditions due to the nature of their profession. In response to this challenge, Dr. Jalila Jbilou from the Université de Moncton and Centre de formation médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick, in collaboration with Routinify and Valley Healthcare Inc., developed the TH@CLINIC an innovative digital-first model of care and behavioural support for professional drivers. Dr. Jbilou, and her team, have begun to introduce this new real-world, real-time model of digital virtual care with drivers this month and, over the next year, will be assessing its impact on healthy behaviors, chronic conditions, and co-morbidities within a study population of 200 professional drivers.

The T.H.A.T. study participants’ glucose, blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, stress, sleep and physical activity data will be remotely monitored and collected daily. These health datasets, combined with waist circumference, body weight, and height will form dynamic individual biophysical and behavioral profiles, that will be used to engage drivers with real-time, targeted personalized behavioural interventions and digital virtual care supports from a multidisciplinary team of healthcare providers. Dexcom G6 real-time continuous glucose monitoring (rtCGM) systems will be used to monitor daily glucose, combined with a professional drivers’ adapted version of the Routinify’s WellAssist continuous wellness and health monitoring platform to guide drivers’ daily activities and coaching.

The T.H.A.T. project is a great example of trilateral collaboration between Government, university and industry stakeholders, including the Government of New Brunswick through (the “Labor Market Research and Analysis program”); the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation; WorkSafe NB; the Université de Moncton; trucking companies including Armour Transportation Systems, Atlantic Pacific Transport Ltd., Day & Ross, Midland Transport Ltd., Seaboard Transport and RST-Sunbury Transport, as members of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association; Valley Healthcare Inc.; Routinify; and Dexcom Canada.

“Professional drivers are on the road most of their time and do not have a standard work schedule. Such working conditions put them at higher risk for diabetes and other preventable chronic diseases. Moreover, only few of them are attached to a primary care professional. The TH@CLINIC offers a unique access to personalized health services, health monitoring (i.e. Dexcom CGM) and coaching to professional drivers, whenever they need support and wherever they are on the road. Findings from the T.H.A.T. project will inform the scaling up and the expansion of agile digital health to other population groups in New Brunswick and elsewhere in Canada,” says Dr. Jbilou, the principal investigator of the T.H.A.T. project.

“Dexcom Canada is pleased to support the T.H.A.T. initiative, and its vision of advanced digital virtual care to improve health and safety outcomes in the professional driver population,” says Elizabeth Whaley, Senior Director at Dexcom Canada. “We’re very excited to see our advanced real-time continuous glucose monitoring technology, and it’s connected data ecosystem, used to enable collection and reporting of glycemic data as both a comparator and component of the innovative model of care under investigation.”

With its focus on e-health literacy and remote, real-time engagement in personalized disease management, TH@CLINIC’s data-driven virtual care model could be readily applied to improve health and safety outcomes in other safety-sensitive workforces with diabetes-related risks, like transit and construction.

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