At first, this “voice” sounded like a gripe session, providing nurses with a forum to vent their complaints about packaging. But device makers and packaging suppliers are understandably eager to learn what materials and substrates work well—and not so well—last year from the perspective of operating room nurses, and this year from emergency room nurses.
Perhaps the most notable common thread among nurses from both theaters is that more of them are in their 40s and 50s, making it more challenging for them to read printed copy on device labels and more difficult to open and manipulate some packages.
In the packaging community, senior-friendly packaging often focuses on making it easier for elderly patients with various medical conditions to open prescription bottles. That will continue to be an important objective. But clearly, senior-friendly packaging must also consider the needs of older healthcare workers.
A recent press release from PHI makes it clear that this extends beyond those working in hospital facilities to those in the growing home/direct-care environment. The release says, “Older women aged 55+ are projected to become 30% of the nation's direct-care workforce by 2018—up from 22% in just 10 years. …By 2018, 1.2 million direct-care workers are expected to be women aged 55 and over.” PHI “works to improve the lives of people who need home and residential care—and the lives of the workers who provide that care.”
Clearly, there's a need for aging healthcare professionals to take care of aging patients. And whether 64 is looking younger to you every day, or if it's in your rear-view mirror, it's to all of our advantage to support packaging that works for healthcare providers and patients.
HealthPack's Voice of the Customer not only provides a qualitative forum for nurses to evaluate packaging, which was moderated by Jennifer Neid, national sales manager, Custom Division, at T.O. Plastics, but it also goes hand-in-hand with a packaging-focused survey done in cooperation with the Institute of Packaging Professionals' Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee. Survey results were reported to event attendees by Jennifer Blocher, medical device applications specialist at Sealed Air Medical. The sheer number of survey respondents the first two years has been modest, but the information from the surveys is important, and the research effort could use a financial contribution. For more information, please e-mail Blocher at [email protected].
Now if I could only get Ringo Starr's tune out of my head…
