Flower Orthopedics announced its FlowerCube™, a standardized, single-use bone fixation concept that provides significant operation and operational efficiencies. Each cube is indication-tailored and contains all of the necessary implants, trials, and instruments needed to perform a procedure in one conveniently sized, Ready-for-Surgery™ FlowerCube.
Flower Orthopedics' "Ready-for-Surgery" concept provides surgery-specific applications in individual sterile packaging, which eliminates the need for pre-op sterilization and, compared to current practices, reduces the number of implants and instruments brought into the operating room (OR). All instruments in the FlowerCube are single-use and disposable, removing the need to reprocess surgical tools post-op.
The disposable feature is designed to help minimize the risk of infection potentially associated with reusable devices and expedite valuable OR turnaround time. With these efficiencies, the company believes hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) could save as much as 30% of the combined implant and instrument costs currently spent on each surgical case.
"The number of items brought into the procedure room for each orthopedic case today is unnecessarily excessive. It's confusing, time-consuming and inefficient. If providers are going to compete in this environment of declining reimbursements, they need better solutions," says Oliver Burckhardt, President and CEO of Flower Orthopedics. "We developed our FlowerCubes to simplify the process of preparing for and conducting bone fixation surgery while ensuring clinical excellence. What you get is consistent, reliable quality with faster patient turnaround time likely."
Through an exclusive distribution agreement with McKesson Medical-Surgical, a healthcare services and information technology company with extensive reach into the AC market, Flower Orthopedics will immediately begin the roll-out of its hand and wrist cubes. The company's foot cubes will be launched over the course of the fourth quarter 2013. Flower Orthopedics' strategic goal is to have FlowerCubes available, able to address all commonly occurring fractures, in 2014.
"At McKesson Medical-Surgical, we strive to deliver better business health for our customers and to help our customers deliver better patient care. We are pleased to be able to offer Flower Orthopedics' products to our surgery center customers. We are glad to offer products to our customers that help them deliver bettPr care for their patients," saya Joan Eliasek, Senior Vice president, Product Strategy & Supplier Relations, McKesson Medical-Surgical.
Designed with simplicity in mind, the FlowerCube concept not only helps take the guesswork out of implant and instrument selection during a case, it allows providers the ability to customize their cube content based on personal preferences. Surgeons can dictate preferences using Flower Orthopedics' mobile tablet app that has a drag-and-drop feature, thereby streamlining the ordering/replenishment process and minimizing inventory levels.
The FlowerCube implants feature the patented Flower Locking System, which allows for accurate anatomic placement and reliable locking. The offering is sold in a rep-less model to eliminate the need to have an implant rep in the room during surgery.
Flower Orthopedics offers a broad range of high-quality bone-fixation implants that are designed for optimal performance and clinical excellence. More than 200 plate options are manufactured in partnership with ZRINSKI AG, a manufacturing leader and supplier of high-quality implants, medical products, and technical solutions, headquartered in Germany.
"We're thrilled to be working directly with McKesson Medical-Surgical in this launch. Their wide-ranging relationships with ASCs will help facilitate an important change in how orthopedic surgery is delivered," adds Burckhardt. "Providing surgeons with only the tools they need in a more efficient way, without compromising patient care, is the right type of change we need for the future of orthopedics."
