A Review of Precision Insulin Management With Smart Insulin Pens: Opening Up the Digital Door to People on Insulin Injection Therapy

Abstract

Although advances in insulin therapy and delivery have been made, global evidence indicates sub-optimal glycemic management in people on insulin therapy with either type 1 diabetes (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D). In this review, we discuss connected insulin pens that include tracking insulin pens (TIPs) and smart insulin pens (SIPs) and caps, as approaches to improving mean glucose or time in range while minimizing exposure to hypoglycemia or time below range (TBR) in people with diabetes (PwD) on multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy. We discuss various factors offered by SIPs that can facilitate precision insulin management, that is, delivering the right dose at the right time. These factors include the automatic recording of insulin dose size and delivery time; differentiating prime from therapy doses; active insulin tracking; dose calculators that provide individualized dosing recommendations; alerts for missed doses (ie, rapid-acting or long-acting insulin), insulin temperature, and insulin age monitoring; and integrated data reports for the clinical care team. A data-driven approach to care is critical to precision insulin management and includes helping PwD make informed choices regarding their preferred method of insulin delivery and ensuring insulin delivery technology tools are configured for their personal therapy plan. The data-driven approach involves developing a plan for ongoing collaborative use of the resulting data with their care team that may include adjusting insulin regimen and optimizing the care plan on a timely basis. We conclude with a list of practice protocols that are needed to support data-driven precision insulin management. This review includes a summary of research including various stages of connected insulin pens and caps.