Smart Insulin Pen: Managing Insulin Therapy for People with Diabetes in the Digital Era

The number of insulin users in Korea has doubled over the past 20 years. Numerous studies have shown the benefits of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) on glycemic outcomes in people with diabetes receiving insulin therapy. However, patients often failed to reach the target even with the CGM. Advanced technology, such as automated insulin delivery (AID), can potentially reduce patient burden and improve glycemic status in people on insulin therapy. However, wearing a CGM all day and complex device operation could also burden users. Additionally, since insulin users are often elderly with type 2 diabetes, there is an urgent need for new devices that are more efficient and simpler than AID. In that sense, the smart insulin pen (SIP) is the expected future technology that does not need to be worn all day and helps to calculate insulin doses with a built-in bolus calculator integrated with CGM. In this context, we discuss efficient use of SIP as an educational tool.