How to build a better insulin pump

Recently, Medtronic posed the following question on their Facebook page:

If you could add one feature to your pump, what would it be? We’re listening.

Something really impressed me about this question: the last two words. I like dialog, discussion, and patient outreach. It’s good to know they’re listening.

What didn’t impress me were some of the responses. While many of them were practical and thought-out, some of them were, to be honest, boneheaded. I won’t detail them here, as I’m not out to insult anyone, but part of the reason vendors don’t often open up the suggestion-box to the public like some of the responses you get are either illogical, impractical, or impossible (or require a cellular contract with data-plan — no thank you). Someone even suggested the pump include a cure “feature” — who wouldn’t want that? (Well, some might say the folks who make a living by treating diabetes, but I’m not one of those conspiracy theorists).

Still, there are some very simple, yet very beneficial improvements that can be made, and rather than just leave one comment amid a thousand (at last count) on a Facebook post, I’m going to take advantage of my blogger pulpit and talk about some of my ideas here. If you’ll indulge me…