Placing an Arterial Line
What is it?
Flexible catheter that is placed into an artery to draw frequent blood samples and measure beat-to-beat blood pressure.
How is it placed?
Locate the artery by either palpation or with ultrasound, introduce a needle into the artery, advance guidewire through the needle, advance catheter over the guidewire, suture in place.
What needs to be unpacked?
Sterile kit, sterile supplies into the sterile field including sterile gloves, arterial line kit with needle/guidewire/catheter, sterile ultrasound probe cover, sterile ultrasound gel, suturing needle, needle driver, sutures, sterile bandaging, sterile gauze.
Unpacking It All
While I didn’t expect all the necessary supplies to perform medical procedures to magically be ready at my fingertips, I didn’t quite appreciate all the organizing and unpackaging that would be required even for the most routine of tasks. In order to make these procedures go smoothly, I learned to take great care into thinking about how I would unpack the materials I was using: where to place them, the order in which I would unpack them, and the technique required to unpack them sterilely.
Some products and devices were intuitively packaged and easy to open, while others were not so simple. At times I would have to worry about where small items inside the package would be located or potentially land if it wasn’t opened up in a perfect manner! I came to appreciate the packages that were neatly designed to allow me to seamlessly open them up and quickly find what I needed.
Why it Matters
One of the consulting services that Canyon Labs provides is the expertise of their packaging engineers to assist with both the design process and implementation of medical packaging. They specialize in providing solutions that are user-centric with a focus on manufacturing, equipment procurement, and scalability. By partnering with Canyon Labs, you can be sure that your device will be thoughtfully packaged and brought to market in a way that enhances the user experience to accomplish a shared common goal: transforming healthcare.