How To: Use CareLink Daily Summary Report

Questions often come up on the use of CareLink Personal therapy management software. This Web-based system brings together information from your insulin pump, continuous glucose monitor (CGM), blood glucose meter, and logbook, and organizes it into easy-to-read charts, graphs and tables. Once you are signed into CareLink and have uploaded your data, you can generate a variety of reports. These reports can help you and your healthcare provider discover trends, uncover patterns, and better understand your diabetes management to help you better manage your diabetes.
You can find the Personal CareLink Getting Started Guide here.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at the Daily Summary report. This report shows glucose readings, basal and bolus insulin delivery, and carbohydrate and exercise levels for one day, helping you to identify the cause and effect of specific high and low glucose events.
There are four main sections to the Daily Summary Report. Here’s what each shows you:
1. Meter and Sensor Glucose Readings
- Blood glucose (BG) values
- Sensor glucose (SG) values
- Target set for reviewing the reports (this is 70-140 mg/dL if you don’t change it)
2. Insulin Delivery
- Amount and type of insulin delivered throughout the day
- Pump alarms
- Time of day when delivery of insulin was suspended
- Basal rates
- Basal suspension
- Temporary basal usage
- Boluses
3. Carbohydrates and Exercise
- Carbohydrates:
- Every time you use the Bolus Wizard feature, your carbohydrate information automatically gets recorded for you to view in your CareLink reports.
- Get the most out of CareLink by entering carbohydrate information in Capture Events in your insulin pump or Guardian, or by using the Logbook feature in CareLink.
Please note, if carbohydrates are entered through the Captured Events or the Logbook feature in CareLink Personal, AND you use the Bolus Wizard, you may see duplicate information.
- Exercise: Enter time, duration, and intensity (low, medium, high) of exercise events using the Logbook feature in CareLink, or add the exercise icon in Capture Events on your insulin pump or Guardian.
4. Summary (Daily Statistics)
- Glucose values (average, lowest, and highest)
- Number of times you checked your glucose
- Total units of Insulin used that day used
- Percent of basal to bolus insulin used
- Total number of minutes the pump had been suspended
- Amount of temp basal used
- Total grams of carbs eaten
- How many meals were eaten
- Exercise data
Whether you’re an avid user or CareLink or just getting started, download the latest Getting Started with CareLink Personal Guide for helpful tips and reference.
Tell us! Do you use CareLink Personal? What is your favorite report and why?
Editor’s note: This article was repurposed from the News to Infuse newsletter. Sign up here for the monthly email newsletter from Medtronic.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
The CareLink software is intended for use as a tool to help manage diabetes. The purpose of the software is to take information transmitted from insulin pumps, glucose meters and continuous glucose monitoring systems, and turn it into CareLink reports. The reports provide information that can be used to identify trends and track daily activities-such as carbohydrates consumed, meal times, insulin delivery, and glucose readings. There are two versions of Medtronic MiniMed CareLink Therapy Management Software available – CareLink Personal and CareLink Pro.
For more information, please visit www. http://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/important-safety-information.
I have been diabetic for 38 years type 1. For the first 25 years or so, I always had numbers where you would think I wasn’t diabetic. Very athletic, lifting weights, martial arts, water and snow skiing. Over the past years my disease is now referred to as brittle diabetes. I can’t get any continuous results. A count of 310 this morning, followed the recommended dosage on my pump. Checked numbers and they didn’t move. I continued to use the wizard and added two units for about five hours before I got my number to drop to the low 200’s. I will start swimming again which is my only exercise due to knee problems and others. Any suggestions on how to deal with this phenomenon? Some horrible things have happened during certain lows.
Thank you
Ron
Ron, thanks for sharing your experience with us. I recommend talking with your healthcare provider who can give you the best advice that meets your individual needs.