LIVE FROM HEALTHPACK: How ethnographic research leads to successful medical device packaging

By observing how customers open and use packaging, Medtronic Cardiovascular solved problems for operating room personnel with its new CoreValve Evolut R system.

HealthPack 2015
HealthPack 2015

Credit Medtronic CardioVascular Senior Principal Packaging Engineer Sameer Upadhyaya for maintaining his sense of humor during a bizarre incident during his HealthPack 2015  presentation in which a huge overhead lighting fixture began shaking and the ballroom quaking.

When HealthPack Conference Director Jim George learned that a large dance troupe was practicing one floor above the event ballroom, he informed attendees and the audience breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Upadhyaya’s presentation brought a much more welcome type of excitement as he used three video clips to show how Medtronic employed ethnographic research to remedy some heretofore vexing packaging problems in the operating room (OR) theater.

Catheter delivery packaging

A first video showed a step-by-step process of how technicians in an OR opened multiple layers of protective packaging, which required handoffs to different personnel and at different tables within the OR. Setting up a catheter for heart valve surgery required an average of seven minutes.

Upadhyaya discussed a more traditional method of packaging separately the three key components for the catheter delivery system. First is the long delivery catheter, double-pouched with an outer shelf carton. Second was the bioprosthesis/valve, packed in a liquid chemical in what appeared to be a rigid jar, which was then packaged in a secondary carton. The third component, a loading system, goes into a double pouch, with a secondary carton.

To develop its new CoreValve Evolut™ R Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) System, Upadhyaya said the Medtronic team conducted ethnographic research to observe how hospital staff opened and handled catheter packaging. The new Evolut R is about 4 in. longer than a previous catheter system, which brought an additional challenge.

Using a cross-functional team approach, Medtronic sought input to the following key questions:

• Would the new product require new packaging, or could a modified version of previous packaging be used?

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