[Sponsored] Healthmark Corporate Profile

For over 50 years Healthmark Industries has provided innovative intelligent solutions to meet the needs of health care facilities. The year 2023 has been a year of growth, offering new products and providing new educational services.

Healthmark announced earlier this year that they have made significant changes to their supply chain efficiency to improve the supply of products to industry partners and increase the manufacturing of major products internally.

The past three years have proved to be a major challenge to the supply chain of health care products. All industries have experienced supply chain challenges in our personal as well as professional lives.

To rise to the challenge of insecure supply and to dramatically improve the ability of Healthmark to supply critical products to their customers, they undertook a major project to develop new channels of supply, including manufacturing many of these products internally!

As they developed these new and alternative sources of supply, their number one goal has been to provide products that meet or exceed the specifications of the existing products. The functionality, the intended use, the specifications, and the performance are equivalent to the existing products. So, rest assured these products will meet (or perhaps even exceed) your expectations based upon your prior experience with these Healthmark products.

By bringing production in house. By bringing it closer to home. By developing alternative sources of supply, Healthmark will be an even more reliable supplier of these critical products for your medical device reprocessing needs.

These product categories include:

• Tray liners
• Tip protectors
• Tray corners
• Cable ties
• Tags and labels
• Bundling, packaging, stringing
• Tray covers
• Wash sleeves
• Protective packaging
• Other related products

Cleaning verification is always a critical issue in health care across the country. News headlines often report about complications from surgeries caused by instruments and equipment that have not been properly cleaned. It has affected the health care field over the years.

Healthmark’s ProFormanceTM monitoring tools to help ensure surgical instruments and other equipment are reprocessed correctly. AAMI1 and AORN2 recommend at least weekly testing (preferably daily) of the cleaning process. These products are designed to help facilities comply with standards and ensure they are reprocessing equipment and cleaning surgical instruments effectively.

Researchers have discovered that devices that haven’t been reprocessed correctly can emerge from the cleaning process with bits of bone, blood and tissue from the previous procedure. These contaminants can be reservoirs for some potentially lethal bacteria. Proper cleaning and sterilization are essential for ensuring that medical and surgical devices do not transmit infectious pathogens to patients.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), multiple studies in many countries have documented lack of compliance with established guidelines for cleaning, disinfection and sterilization3. Failure to comply with scientifically based guidelines has led to numerous outbreaks.

Healthmark continues to create educational opportunities for health care professionals to earn CEUs. Health care professionals can register directly on the website at https://www.hmark.com/education/

In addition to the webinars offered, Healthmark also provides a unique free service at Crazy4Clean.com. It’s a website that consists of educational games designed to teach health care professionals about proper reprocessing of instruments/equipment while earning free CEUs. At the end of each game, players receive a free CEU by completing a quiz based on what they’ve learned.

StyleYourPPE.com is a site created by Healthmark where health care professionals can purchase PPE and other attire for individual use. Face masks, Cool Aids and other PPE attire are available as well as socks that are creatively designed to add a little fun to a serious dress code.

If you are looking for industry news, helpful hints and other information, Healthmark produces a weekly newsletter that is distributed to thousands of readers. Each Healthmarket Digest features a story written by a member of the Healthmark team as well as a weekly feature. You can sign up for the Healthmarket Digest weekly newsletter at Healthmarketdigest.com.

For more information about Healthmark Industries, visit www.hmark.com or call 800-521-6224.

1 AAMI (ST79 Comprehensive Guide to Steam Sterilization and Sterility Assurance in Health Care Facilities)

2 AORN Recommended Practices for Cleaning and Care of Surgical Instruments and Powered Equipment

3 https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/pdf/guidelines/environmental-guidelines-P.pdf