When it comes to medicine and medical supplies, there is a large number of items that must always be bought from trusted, reputable providers. This ensures a standard of quality care for medical patients by giving doctors and nurses the tools they require to carry out their jobs effectively.
Becoming a reputable provider does not happen overnight. Trusted suppliers have worked hard for years in order to become market leaders in medical supplies and, once a health care body has found one they can rely on, they should stick with them for a long time.
Hand Sanitizer
In 2020, medical supplies such as hand sanitizer have been in high demand. Quickly being able to kill germs and bacteria after touching door handles or going to the bathroom is essential and, while hand sanitizer is not as comprehensive as washing hands with warm water and soap, it is effective at helping prevent the spread of illness.
Hand sanitizer should be alcohol based and to work effectively should have a concentration of over 60% alcohol. Using quality hand sanitizer and complementing it with proper soap and moisturizer is critical as it can quickly dry out and irritate skin.
Needles
With more than 150,000 patients in the United States being victim of unsafe injections since 2001, doubts have been cast over safe needle usage in the country. For this reason, medical centers must take the utmost care when purchasing and using needles in order to protect their patients from diseases such as MRSA.
Refrigeration Storage
Having a reliable refrigerator is central to safe medical practice as many supplies such as insulin, vaccines and creams often have to be kept at low temperatures. A faulty storage unit could therefore compromise the effectiveness of these medicines and could even lead to them going to waste.
Plasters and Dressings
While plasters and dressings such as bandages seem like straight forward supplies to source and use, practitioners do have to have proper and thorough training on how to use them. This is because covering a wound to protect it from dirt and friction is key for helping it heal and preventing infection, so high-quality band aids and sterile dressings are key components of a doctor’s cupboard.
Dressings come in different materials, levels of compression and shapes, so having a supplier with a decent range is important.
Gloves
In a doctor’s practice, gloves should be available in any room where a patient is cared for. The reason why they should be obtained from a trusted supplier is that there is more choice with medical gloves than you might think.
Gloves can be latex or non-latex; different gloves should be worn for handling different substances or chemicals – such as having gloves suitable for oil-based lotions – and they also come in various sizes.
Waste Bags
Disposing of waste in a sterile and guideline appropriate manner is vital to a safe medical practice. Many practices will have different color waste bags for different substances, while sharps such as needles and scalpels should not be put into bags that will tear.
Therefore, having a wide range of the appropriate waste bags supplied by reliable vendors is necessary.