A major player in the world of diabetes management, Medtronic Inc., has just released a new product: CareLink Pro Software. The product is part of Medtronic's CareLink line for diabetes management. Designed for use by physicians, CareLink Pro Software is intended to help docs - specifically, endocrinologists - with what seems to be an increasingly impossible task: juggling all the information on diabetic patients without dropping any balls - that is, without losing anything, without making mistakes, and just generally making it more likely patients will get optimal care. So, your doctor can store and retrieve patient info from the Internet, and can store data from a patient's continuous glucose monitoring device, among other things. All this info is located in one place so docs can quickly scan through and assess each patient's state of health. Says Chris O'Connell, president of Medtronic's diabetes division, "Due to large patient case loads, many endocrinologists are often overburdened and have less time to spend with each patient, so we believe that better information and closer communication between physician and patient will help improve diabetes management and therapy outcomes."

On the one hand, it makes so much sense that this kind of technology would, as Medtronic claims, optimize patient care. And as diagnosis and treatment becomes ever more complex, data management will need to evolve and become more sophisticated and, as in this case, better tailored for specific uses. On the other hand, however, how are most medical professionals going to find the time to set it up and learn how to use it? I have to wonder how doctors greet these kinds of new technology releases. "Oh great, more gadgets to eat up my time."