All of us must have witnessed the care and attention paid to wraps, plastic packets, cartons, wooden boxes, acrylic containers and so on when we order our favourite consume products online. That’s done to protect the substances inside and to maintain them in better quality, quantity and shape. Also, we have often witnessed examples of packaging material malfunctioning. But, the point of consideration lies in the fact that package materials can’t cause dysfunction, but our choice of materials do. And similar to personal care goods, medical items, especially sensitive pharmaceutical products like dangerous goods, clinical trials and vaccines should be packaged thoughtfully.
Healthcare Logistics Solutions and Packaging – what’s the relation?
It won’t be an overstatement if we remark these factors to have a symbiotic relationship. The better the packing, more mental peace at your end that the product is safe and would be shipped securely to the laboratory, or a warehouse whatever the destined drop-off is.
5 basic things to consider while packaging medical shipments
Here are five key factors to consider while packaging medical products for the benefit of a wider ecosystem.
- Weight: it’s a highly important factor and should be prioritized above all. While most of the times, weight is easier to estimate, we should not forget to keep a margin if we several items are shipped together or as collective units – for example, vaccines while they are transported to a maternity home. Sometimes, the packages are small yet heavy, while other packages may be too big in size and light-weight – remember that your costs do largely depend on the weight of the shipment too.
- Seasons Shipments: If you have a seasonal or patterned shipment, and a cold supply chain partner who takes patterned orders from you, then there is less to worry about. However, if it’s a new item or a rare one you plan to ship, then you’d have to consider the preferences of the vendor too.
- Drop-off and estimated time of Delivery: Distance to drop-off position decides how long your healthcare logistics would take to ship the item to the destination. While packaging, ensure that the package materials are suitable for the no. of hours too. Samples, clinical trials and even dangerous goods could evaporate after anticipated time and may leak, causing serious damage.
- Cold-chain failures: Consider the most common health care logistics failures, conduct a risk assessment and then choose materials that are resistant to sudden drops in temperature and pressure if not anything else. During downtimes, even though they are rare, your efficient and strong packaging should be able to protect the medical item in case of emergencies.
- Consider product properties: While product payload-to-shipping is a common ration used by all medical logistics companies, it is also better to use other logical observations like the state of the medical goods (may be solid, liquid, gas or even plasma in case of blood), the ideal temperature for storage and for transportation, hours they can stay effective in warehouses and other factors as recommended by authorities.
While temperature, pressure, shipping profiles, size, time in transit and weight are highly important, we ask all of our clients to check the pay-load and mock-test the sustainability and strength of the items they plan to ship with us.