SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
bob_cville

My favorite new commercial

bob_cville
8 years ago

Its actually a commercial for a medical product, and as such is no less annoying then all of the rest of them, but this one is for an automatic epinephrine injector that talks the patient through the process of using it.

The company that makes it was started by two brothers, one of whom was a grad student for my wife. The brothers both have severe allergies that require them to carry a epinephrine injector in case of anaphylactic shock. They felt that the existing commonly used, pen-shaped device is too large to carry easily, and too hard too use, especially in the case where the allergic reaction is so severe that the person is unconscious, and another person must administer the injection.

My wife helped design and run the usability studies for this new device, comparing it to the existing pen-shaped device, and (IIRC) another epinephrine injector device. One of the findings of this study was that for first-time users of the pen-shaped device some percentage of the people used the device backwards, injecting the medicine into their own thumb instead of the patient's leg. Apparently this not only would result in the patient not receiving the medicine and possibly dying, but it could also result in the person administering the injection losing their thumb.

The reason I'm glad to see the commercial is that it means that their company have finally managed to jump through all of the hoops from the FDA, work around the roadblocks and lawsuits they faced and bring their product to market.


Comments (2)