Tag: ISO

Putting Together A Robust Health And Safety Management System

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When it comes to the health and safety of your staff, customers and suppliers, attention to detail is of paramount importance. Anything that slips under the radar can result in injury, law suits and damage to your reputation. A health and safety management system works to identify risks and put in place efficient processes to avoid mishaps and accidents. There are obviously obligations around health and safety that your company must commit to in order to not break the law but a health and safety management system helps you to take it that one step further to really reduce the risk of accidents.

It is a good idea to appoint someone in your company to head up the management system. This ensures that should something go wrong that there is someone designated as accountable. This isnt so that blame can be put on someone but so that it is someones duty to manage the system and monitor any changes. They would be in charge of ensuring that hazards, however small, have been identified and that solutions have been implemented to reduce any risks. They should also make sure that all staff have been trained effectively and that routine checks are done to make sure that nothing has changed.

Many organisations, especially larger companies and those in the public sector choose to obtain OHSAS 18001. This is the international standard as set by ISO (international organisation for standardisation) for health and safety systems management. There are many reasons for its popularity but the main one is that is provides clear and easy to implement guidelines for health and safety policy in the workplace. After you achieved the standard, you will be presented with a company handbook that is bespoke to you and your processes. This is ideal for staff training and means that should anything change, you can easily just add the new policies to the handbook.

However you choose to implement a health and safety management system, it can greatly reduce the chance of an accident in the workplace, instilling confidence in staff, suppliers and customers. OHSAS 18001 is a great way to demonstrate your commitment to health and safety at work.

Medical Packaging and You

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When it comes to products and tools in general — the level of sterility, precision, and quality youll find in a hospital is virtually unparalleled. This is hardly surprising.

Healthcare is one of the most important facets of our lives. Where would we be without it? From open heart surgery to basic modern medicine, the healthcare industry has made the impossible possible, and preserved life where it might never have a chance. But to meet the very unique requirements of modern medicine, a wide variety of products and technologies have been developed to package, protect, and deliver the many life saving tools that are used today.

To regulate these products, a number of standards have been developed to make sure that when health care is involved, production standards are held to a particularly high standard. For example, the EN868 and ISO 11607 standards both come together to ensure that sterilized plastic packaging used everywhere from operating rooms to doctors offices are held to very specific quality standards regulating their production, packaging, quality control and more.
The prevalence of these standards highlights the monumental importance of medical packaging. Think about it, without effective medical packaging how would the pace makers, the syringes, the scalpels, tongue depressors, and thermometers be delivered safely and hygienically?
When surgeons are performing any sort of procedure, they frequently must rely on the many tools that come with the job whether they are installing a new set of lungs or removing a tumor.

In both cases, any sort of contamination could mean the difference between a successful procedure and a serious infection. This is why so many standards are in place to ensure that medical packaging is safe and effective. At the same time, design is also of major importance. Imagine a medical tool or device is requested by a doctor in sealed packaging, only to end up being impossible to open. Not only does this present a challenge in a time-sensitive environment, but it also risks damaging the medical equipment.

Apart from medical devices and instruments, medical packaging is also vital for pharmaceuticals especially when it comes to unit dose packaging used everywhere from hospitals and doctors offices to the nurses office in your local school. Apart from medical devices and instruments, medical packaging is used in this way to also ensure sterility and accurate doses of medication all the time.

So next time you visit the doctor or the hospital and rely on medical instruments or tools to get well, think about what got those tools to your bedside safely and effectively.

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