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Designing For an Emergency: Pharmapack Europe 2025 Session

In the case of an acutely stressful event, medical products need to be designed with that environment in mind to ensure proper device use.

Insights from real people that have had to use a medical device in an emergency situation will place manufacturers in a better position when it comes to developing emergency use medical devices.
Insights from real people that have had to use a medical device in an emergency situation will place manufacturers in a better position when it comes to developing emergency use medical devices.
Pharmapack Europe

At Pharmapack Europe 2025 this past January, Alper Hulusi – Head of Market Insights at ClariMed, gave a Lightning Talk on ‘Designing for an Emergency: Considerations for emergency use product design. He shared a real-life story about his son that forced him to have to use the life-saving device, a Glucagon pen. Through the experience he learned that even with all of the necessary experience and knowledge about the product, he still faltered, because “a real emergency setting is far different from the simulation scenarios.” And while Clarimed works in simulating these emergency scenarios for designing for human factors, through this, Hulusi learned that we cannot fully and accurately simulate an emergency.

“We need to look beyond the physical device. We need a better understanding of the experience and emotion of real-life emergency use,” said Hulusi at Pharmapack.

He also talked a lot about incorporating empathy into medical device design through not only the packaging but the product itself, as well as the instructions, to help users handle them correctly.

Here’s what else he shared:

Alper HulusiAlper Hulusi is the Head of Market Insights at ClariMed.defacto

Q) At Pharmapack you spoke on emergency use devices, and even shared a personal story about your son – can you tell us a little more about this?

“The issue we see here is that medical device companies obviously try to design for real-world situations. Take a Glucagon pen for example, which is used to save lives during an insulin slump. In a formative or summative research session, we strive to have people handle the device in an environment that, as accurately as possible, mimics the real deal! But how can we successfully simulate the emotional and cognitive burden someone experiences when they use a device like this?  Imagine, a parent confronted by their son or daughter mid-seizure, having to prepare and inject a Glucagon pen, as intended by the manufacturer. It’s an acutely stressful event and medical products need to be designed with that in mind. But how do we develop and ‘test’ these devices in a simulated scenario and know that they’ve been designed in a way that will give people a fighting chance of handling them correctly?”

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LAST CHANCE TO SAVE! New Tech for Life Sciences at PACK EXPO Southeast