By: Mark Gaston
When it comes to products and tools in general -- the level
of sterility, precision, and quality you’ll find in a hospital is virtually
unparalleled. This is hardly surprising.
Healthcare is one of the most important facets of our lives.
Where would we be without it? From open heart surgery to basic modern medicine,
the healthcare industry has made the impossible possible, and preserved life
where it might never have a chance. But to meet the very unique requirements of
modern medicine, a wide variety of products and technologies have been
developed to package, protect, and deliver the many life saving tools that are
used today.
To regulate these products, a number of standards have been
developed to make sure that when health care is involved, production standards
are held to a particularly high standard. For example, the EN868 and ISO 11607
standards –both come together to ensure that sterilized plastic packaging used
everywhere from operating rooms to doctor’s offices are held to very specific
quality standards regulating their production, packaging, quality control and
more.
The prevalence of these standards highlights the monumental
importance of medical packaging. Think about it, without effective medical
packaging – how would the pace makers, the syringes, the scalpels, tongue
depressors, and thermometers be delivered safely and hygienically?
When surgeons are performing any sort of procedure, they
frequently must rely on the many tools that come with the job – whether they
are installing a new set of lungs or removing a tumor.
In both cases, any sort of contamination could mean the
difference between a successful procedure and a serious infection. This is why
so many standards are in place to ensure that medical packaging is safe and
effective. At the same time, design is also of major importance. Imagine a
medical tool or device is requested by a doctor in sealed packaging, only to
end up being impossible to open. Not only does this present a challenge in a
time-sensitive environment, but it also risks damaging the medical equipment.
Apart from medical devices and instruments, medical
packaging is also vital for pharmaceuticals – especially when it comes to unit
dose packaging used everywhere from hospitals and doctor’s offices to the
nurse’s office in your local school. Apart from medical devices and
instruments, medical packaging is used in this way to also ensure sterility and
accurate doses of medication all the time.
So next time you visit the doctor or the hospital and rely
on medical instruments or tools to get well, think about what got those tools
to your bedside safely and effectively.
Mark Gaston frequently writes about science, technology, and
many of the technologies we often tend to overlook. Recently, he's written
about medical packaging and how it affects us
every day.