Health care packaging conference immerses attendees in dramatic environments

The Michigan State University (MSU) School of Packaging will again team up with the accredited healthcare simulation facility, the Learning and Assessment Center (LAC) to host their third event for medical device professionals and health care practitioners. The event is slated for Oct. 2 and 3 at the James B. Henry Center in East Lansing. Dinner will be held overlooking Spartan Stadium on the evening of Oct. 2.

The event is designed to allow senior-level medical device packaging professionals access to cutting-edge research and experience the contextual performance of medical packaging in varied contexts of care. Participants have engaging conversations regarding packaging challenges and discuss possible solutions with nurses and doctors.

Conference highlights include:

• Speakers slated for leading sessions include – Kevin Smith, a logistics management specialist and retired Master Gunnery Sergeant of the United States Marine Corps; Roseann Salasin, Global Marketing Director for DuPont Medical and Pharmaceutical Protection on the HPRC Initiative and Nicole O’Connell, of the British Standards Institute (BSI)

• The audience will be immersed in simulations – Attendees at the conference will gown and glove to get the full experience of using some of the packages they design. Further, they will have the opportunity to practice aseptic technique. Those able to successfully present their devices to the sterile field will compete for an opportunity to be a caregiving family member during our home health simulation.

• Prehospital Simulation – Attendees will be immersed in an accident scene in which a father and his pregnant daughter must react as seconds count.

• OB-GYN Simulation – A simulated delivery will occur as the trauma of the first simulation induces preterm labor in the daughter and a dramatic delivery.

• Home Health Simulation – Research suggests that 80 to 90 percent of long term care is provided by family members, who have reported they regularly: assist with mediation, administer IVs/injections, help with assistive devices, wound care, monitors and medical equipment. This simulation will provide insights into the stress and difficulty caring for a loved one can impose and how product/package design can aid or hinder this burden.

• Incredible Journey of a Patient (from emergency to home health) – Attendees will gain insight into the roles and expectations of the varied providers that work: from the prehospital environment to: emergency, pre-op, intra-op, post-op ward care and home health; design factors of great importance in one environment may have limited value in others. Understand what is needed and valued by all.

"Our goal is to provide a bridge between the people designing and manufacturing the devices and packaging and the real world," said Laura Bix, associate professor in the School of Packaging. "It's important to know how what you as a packaging engineer produce, impacts health outcomes."

MaryKay Smith, director of MSU’s LAC concurred.

"Packaging engineers and manufacturers are, generally speaking, not physicians or technicians in either the emergency or the operating rooms," Smith said. "Simulations provide an opportunity to evaluate how devices work – and don't – in a safe environment. Ultimately, this can lead to better quality patient care."

MSU is the only university in the world to bring together faculty members from colleges of
Human Medicine, Nursing, Osteopathic Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and School of Packaging, so it is logical that the institution host an event like this, Bix said.

"We want to know how all the different elements come together to create a situation that is optimal or not in order to work together to, literally, save lives," Bix said.

In addition to MSU, the conference is sponsored by DuPont, Rollprint, Thermoform Engineered Quality, Neenah Paper, Glenroy and Oliver-Tolas Healthcare Packaging. Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging News is serving as an exclusive media partner for the event.