Epinephrine is a lifesaver, I can tell you from personal experience.  So any technology that can help save lives is worth a look, especially for a food allergy technology mom blog!

Gizmodo recently reported on a Smart Epi Pen case that will alert family and friends that there’s an allergic reaction in progress, and epinephrine was used. The Veta case requires the download of an app on a smartphone (iOS or Android) with Bluetooth enabled.  It’s available for pre-order now, and was demo’ed at CES 2015.

Among the features – besides the alarm and the location of your child – the kit will tell you if the temperature of where the epi pen is stored is not right and the medication has been compromised.

Since I have two allergic children, who spend time away from us either at school or sports events, I think this is a great innovation. Especially because it can help me make sure they have their medication at all times! But I’d recommend a few tweaks.

First, it needs to work for multiple doses of epinephrine. Sometimes a single shot only lasts 20 minutes and a reaction comes back before emergency personnel can get there. This system needs to account for that reality – my kids need to carry two doses.

Second, this would be great for the other brands of epinephrine on the market. We use the Auvi-Q, which will talk you through the injection. The shot is encased in a cassette that is a completely different shape than the Epi Pen.

All that said – for the Epi-Pen users in my family, I think this is a great idea.