Operating rooms are getting more crowded. Along with surgeons, nurses and other personnel, space needs to be made for more robots and other advanced diagnostic imaging and surgical equipment.
Having more equipment in the rooms also means more sterilization needs to keep patient infections down. Cleaning the equipment between each procedure is an option. Another is to use protective barriers that are replaced after each procedure, which reduces the wear and tear and also takes less time.
Ecolab, a long-time vendor for health care facilities' cleaning and sanitization needs, opened a 22,000-square-foot Advance Design Center in Eagan this week to collaborate with medical device companies on those sterilization solutions.
The St. Paul-based company says the new center is designed to deliver prototypes and then continue with corrections or modifications so new products can get to market quickly.
"We can provide assurance that the infection prevention is done effectively but also efficiently so that more of the health care providers' time and energy and resources can be focused on patient care," said Catherine Draper, senior vice president of strategic initiatives for Ecolab's Global Healthcare.
The Twin Cities is one of the hubs for the device industry, allowing for closer geographic relationships with those businesses, but the center has video conferencing and presentation rooms.
The key features are a maker space, an advanced machine shop and a metrology and testing space. In addition, there is a 9,600-square-foot ISO-8 clean room for assembly and packaging.
Some of the more complex robotic surgical equipment move and operate in multiple dimensions that require custom drapes that don't interfere with the operation of the machine and can be swiftly removed and replaced. Some machines might need a single drape, while others might need multiple drapes packaged in a kit.
