Counting Down the Top 10 Articles of 2022 - #4: Kilmer Innovations in Packaging Tackles 'Wicked Problems' in Med Device Sterility

In our top 10 of 2022: Kilmer Innovations in Packaging (or KiiP) is a sterility assurance value chain collaborative effort focused on medical device packaging with the intent of fostering bold, unprecedented innovation. Their slogan is “solving wicked problems in healthcare packaging,” adopting a phrase originally coined by Dr. Laura Bix at a previous HealthPack conference; Dr. Bix brought it back into the conversation as KiiP was being formed. The idea behind KiiP and its slogan is that solutions to these wicked problems will lead to improved patient safety— while enhancing the experience of healthcare workers—among other benefits. 

For a bit of background: The Kilmer Conference is put on by Johnson and Johnson once every three years, and the next is scheduled for 2022. It’s a prestigious, invitation-only event focused on sterility assurance. 

Jennifer Benolken, MDM & regulatory specialist, packaging engineering at DuPont explained that a group of colleagues sat down at the last Kilmer Conference in 2019 and asked how they could get more people at the next conference who are passionate about packaging. What started out as a conversation about socializing the concept of the Kilmer Conference amongst packaging professionals has turned into an industry initiative in the spirit of the Kilmer Conference to collaborate to innovate. They’ve made a lot of progress in the last two and a half years, and it’s blossomed into a KiiP group on LinkedIn of over 300 members who have broken down value chain silos from medical device manufacturers through to the end-user and healthcare professionals.

Continue to the full article here: Kilmer Innovations in Packaging Tackles 'Wicked Problems' in Med Device Sterility