This Israeli-Developed App Can Save You From Anaphylactic Shock – Or An Opioid Overdose
Israeli researchers have developed a smartphone app that could help save the lives of people with severe allergic reactions, like anaphylactic shock, and those suffering from opioid overdoses, which have led to the deaths of over 40,000 Americans in 2016 alone according to US authorities.
In Israel, researchers from Bar-Ilan University partnered with the country’s national emergency medical service Magen David Adom to develop “EPIMADA,” a smartphone app said to be the first social network for chronic patients – in this case, those suffering from allergic reactions – who can facilitate the sharing and delivery of emergency medication like EpiPens. Allergic reactions to food, medications, flora, and fauna can range from mild – coughing, sneezing, watery eyes – to severe, where sufferers can go into anaphylactic shock, a state brought on by allergen which in extreme cases can lead to death.
“Millions of severe allergy suffers are at a high risk of developing anaphylactic shock, a serious allergic reaction that causes death within minutes,” a Bar-Ilan University statement read. “A severe reaction can be treated with an EpiPen, a pen-like autoinjector syringe containing adrenaline used to deliver the life-saving medication epinephrine. Unfortunately, however, many allergy patients don’t take their medication with them at all times.”
The app was created by researchers Prof. David G. Schwartz and doctoral students Michael Khalemsky and Michal Gaziel Yablowitz from the School of Business Administration at Bar-Ilan University, using guidelines developed in Schwartz’s Social Intelligence Lab, a research center focused on the social uses of information and communication technologies. The three worked together with a Magen David Adom (MDA) team led by Dr. Eli Jaffe.
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