How you maintain high standarts of hygiene
...is detailed by Nurse Melanie Schubrink.
T he small girl lying on the mattblue therapy table is giggling again. She has just been crying. Melanie Schubrink, the friendly nurse, was able to gently comfort the fouryear- old and is now distracting her with finger games. The toddler has scalded her leg. Now she is receiving expert treatment in the hospital out-patient department. The young woman in the blue uniform is pressing the rest of the white ointment out of the rolled-up aluminium tube onto the affected area of skin. Precisely. Now she is opening a flat aluminium pouch using the tear notch. The dressing slides straight out of the silvery pack onto the wound. Free from germs. „You’re brave,“ she says praising the blonde girl with the glitzy hair slide. (Photo: fotolia/ VILevi)
Aluminium foil’s purity caters for hygiene and health
In the staff lounge, the dedicated nurse, who is currently implementing an innovative project in the large hospital, explains how important it is to rigorously observe each and every hygiene measure. „Hands are breeding grounds for germs and hospital germs are very aggressive,“ she explains. „The highest possible degree of cleanliness is unbelievably important for the health of our patients. The intelligent use of extremely hygienic materials like aluminium is a great help.“
„The manufacturer sterilises burn ointment, for example, by heating the tube several times“, she says. She goes on to explain that aluminium’s excellent barrier function means there are no undesirable external influences and it prevents important constituents of the formulation from escaping. Pharmaceutical products are guaranteed to stay as clean and effective as the day they were filled. „It’s also great that nothing gets sucked back into the tube after squeezing it,“ she enthuses confidently. „This prevents any undesirable ingression of oxygen or micro-organisms.“
On the table, her colleague is preparing medication. With a concentrated look on her face, she picks up the tiny tablets one by one with tweezers from a small rigid aluminium tube. Then she lets them fall into the compartments of a tablet dispenser. Tablet for tablet.
„In the interests of hygiene we avoid touching the medication with our hands wherever possible,“ the nurse explains. „Sometimes this seems inconvenient. We’re grateful here for clever inventions,“ she says and with a wink hands her colleague a blister pack from the medicine cupboard on the wall. „Simply press the tablets straight from the pack into a tablet dispenser. That’s clean and easy,“ laughs the dynamic 26-year-old, and as she does her auburn ponytail bobs up and down.
Over coffee she talks about her idea. How she was soundly shot down by the management of the clinic at first. How she found unexpected allies who prepared a cost-benefit analysis for her. Red-cheeked, she tells of her exciting presentation which finally persuaded the management that her plan was viable.
More time for the patients
What was it that bothered this dedicated young woman? „We nursing staff spend hours every day preparing medication. I asked myself if there wasn’t a less time-consuming and more reliable way of doing it. And it really is possible. With a software-controlled automated blister dispenser. This invention is fantastic,“ she says excitedly. „The doctor enters the prescribed medication in the computer. The data are transmitted to the automated blister dispenser. The medication for each patient is then packaged centrally. The whole medication- supply process is efficient and economic,“ she says, explaining the project. „This reduces the amount of work in the ward tremendously. The whole process is extremely hygienic. It avoids errors. It couldn’t be any more convenient.“ What does she regard as being the greatest added benefit of her idea? „That’s obvious,“ she says. „More time for the patients!“ She stands up and takes a pack of chewing gum out of her shoulder bag. Blister-packed. Laughing impishly she points the pack towards me and presses a piece of chewing gum through the foil into her hand. „Did you hear that?“ she asks. „I love that sound. I call it cracking the packing.“
Original and counterfeit: with aluminium you don’t gamble with risk
Having confidence in the reliability of a pharmaceutical product is certainly as important as having confidence in the doctor who prescribed it. Does the pack really contain what it says it does? Medication counterfeiting is a growing problem. A counterfeit pharma product might contain no active ingredients, or insufficient or excessive amounts of them, or even completely different ones to the original preparation. This explains why packs of medication also have to offer reliable protection against counter- feiting. Aluminium packaging offers the ideal solution. And modern technology supplies the special effects. Some of the aluminium foil on blister packs already carries elaborate security features like those used on banknotes. A technology that is regarded as being particularly in- vulnerable has recently been introduced: the manufacturer’s brand identity is embossed as a micro-holograph directly in the aluminium foil. It is impossible to rub it off. This means that one can say with certainty whether a pack is an original. And with aluminium tubes, an intact push-through membrane is evidence that a product cannot have been tampered with.