Do you know someone who believes that duct tape fixes everything? It’s a handy product; there’s no question about it. If only there were a similar, do-it-all solution when designing devices for medical and healthcare use. Choosing the best fastening method for your product is no small decision. There are many factors to consider, including design, manufacturing, compliance, safety, and more. However, thanks to impressive material science advancements, adhesives have emerged as a viable, cost-effective replacement over mechanical fasteners.

If you’ve been following our blog, you already know that we are big fans of adhesives. Whether you’re assembling an electronic device or creating a wearable that needs to stick to skin, odds are there’s an adhesive that can fit into your design and improve the functionality or manufacturability of your product.

In this episode of The Better Product Solutions Podcast, we speak with Bill Sullivan, Executive Vice President, Business and Technology Discovery at FLEXcon. In this podcast, Bill gives us a breakdown of more functional technologies to films and coatings, some of the capabilities bringing new technology to the forefront and how to help brand owners launch products faster.

On a recent episode of our Better Product Solution Podcast, 3M’s Senior Product Development Engineer Bret Ludwig joined us to talk about advancements and opportunities in wearable skin tape and adhesives. One of the many fascinating topics that he discussed was how challenging it can be for a product to stick to skin. Here’s a quick clip.

The saying is true – good things can come in small packages. In today’s marketplace, devices are simultaneously getting smaller and more powerful. However, compact products pose a wide range of design challenges and complexities. The good news is that in many cases, the solution is surprisingly simple: foam. Now, we’re not talking about the foams of yesteryear. Through dedicated research and development, materials manufacturers have created innovative and specialized foams for a multitude of applications.

Telemedicine was already on the rise even before COVID-19 hit. However, it’s one thing for a medical professional to consult with a patient virtually – it’s a bigger challenge to perform diagnostics and monitoring from a distance. As our population grows and ages, along with the increasing rates of chronic health issues, our healthcare system is at risk of being overwhelmed. One strategy to keep up with demand and reduce overall cost is with remote patient monitoring.

Cleanliness and contamination have taken on completely new meanings in 2020. However, these ideas have always been important in the manufacturing realm – and not necessarily to prevent the spread of viruses. When making products with sensitive components or to strict industry regulations, finding a reliable and certified cleanroom manufacturing partner is critical to your success.

Medical knowledge and technology have advanced at incredible rates. Many of today’s routine tests and procedures would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago. Yet with all the innovation, people are still the heart of our medical care. And that means human error is always a possibility. Take, for instance, the field of spinal surgery. According to a 2014 survey by the North American Spine Society (NASS), 68% of respondents stated that at some point in their careers, they performed either wrong-level exposures or wrong-level surgeries on the spine. Not only can inaccurate procedures be extremely harmful to patients but resulting lawsuits can result in damages over $1 million. Mistakes can happen in any area of medicine. While there are numerous factors that can cause them, many are preventable. One strategy is improving the accuracy of testing and procedures with radiopaque markers.

Bigger, faster, stronger. That’s the motto of the Olympics and athletes around the world. But when it comes to product design and manufacturing, the philosophy is often: lighter is better.   The strategy of lightweighting has been embraced by the automotive and transportation industries for many years now. But many other industries can benefit from this approach, including medical devices, medical equipment, industrial products, aerospace, and more.

When working on a medical device, we are often so focused on our specific task or responsibility, it can be easy to lose sight of where your efforts fit into the big picture. But the reality is, what you’re making is being used in the real world by real people – whether directly by a patient or to help a medical professional do their job more effectively or efficiently. To keep this in perspective, here are a few common medical device components and the value that they provide.