Workplace ergonomics is getting a lot of attention nationwide in response to a sharp increase in incidents of repetitive strain injuries resulting in musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome.  Occupational diseases often mean repeated surgery, intractable pain, inability to work, time off for the affected employee, and, ultimately, higher costs for the employer.  Listed below are four steps a company can take to address this growing problem.

Step One: Review Tasks for Risk Factors
The first step to correcting problems is to understand the key workplace ergonomic risk factors and review work tasks in your operation to see which ones apply. This can make a tremendous difference, since occupational safety professionals estimate that reducing physical stresses could eliminate as much as half the serious injuries that happen each year.

Step Two: Control risk factors with engineering and administrative controls and personal equipment where it is effective.
Engineering controls to improve ergonomic risks may include changing the way parts and materials are transported or changing the process to reduce how workers are exposed to risk factors.

Step Three: Understand how to make the work space work ergonomically:
With any task, selecting the proper tool is crucial. The key is to understand the work process and employee’s safety needs involved. After identifying the likely risk factors in an operation, develop a safer work environment by carefully selecting the tools and work stations workers will use.

Step Four: Use work station design principles to improve ergonomics: the following strategies typically yield safe work environments.
1) Make the work station adjustable
2) Locate materials to reduce twisting
3) Avoid static loads and fixed work postures
4) Set the work surface to the particular task
5) Provide adjustable chairs
6) Allow workers to alternate between standing and sitting
7) Support the limbs
8) Use gravity
9) Design for proper movements
10) Consider computer monitors
11) Provide simple dials and displays
12) Consider overall environmental conditions

By Jim Norton, president, Custom Products & Services Inc.

To learn more about Custom Products & Services Inc., visit the company’s website or call 888-444-1202.

CardioNet Inc., the leading wireless medical technology company focused on diagnosing and monitoring cardiac arrhythmias, releases an application for the iPad, designed to provide physicians and their support staff easy access to the cardiac monitoring services at CardioNet.

Joseph Capper, CEO and president, CardioNet says, “We are pleased to offer the thousands of physicians who prescribe MCOT, the most advanced cardiac monitoring system on the market, easier accessibility to patient data. Starting today, we launched an iPad application which allows health care providers to instantly access cardiac monitoring reports on-line. We believe that making the most precise mobile cardiac-related information available to physicians at their fingertips, in a user-friendly format, is a powerful tool that will benefit patients, payors and physicians alike.”

The new CardioNet Access App, currently available for free download at the Apple store, will enable physicians to save, print and send patient reports from the convenience of their iPad.

A new report by visiongain, a London-based business information provider, predicts that the Indian medical device market will be worth $11 billion by 2023.

The emerging regions of India and China hold huge opportunities for the medical device manufacturers, as their markets expand at double digit rates.  Last year, the Indian medical device market generated $3 billion in sales.

"The Indian medical device industry has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, as a result of increased awareness amongst the end-users, and affordability of healthcare products and services with the increasing spending power," says Rupali Vadhera, a healthcare industry analyst.

Vadhera also credits the growth to the government for expanding healthcare coverage to rural areas and to the growth in the private hospital sector.

"The availability and easier access to healthcare has increased the use of medical devices," he says. "Though for a majority of the population, private healthcare is unaffordable."

Future growth in this market is also expected to be driven by patient demographics, particularly with the rise in the country's aging population, which has fuelled increased incidence of age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease.

Although the prospects for the market appear promising, the lack of strict regulation of several medical devices in the country will be a challenge in the future as the devices reaching the market become more complex and the end-users demand quality for the price.

According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, the mature and largely commoditized United States market for gynecological devices will grow moderately to reach a value of nearly $984 million by 2017. A significant driver of market growth is the increasing number of gynecological procedures performed in an office setting.

Manufacturers have increasingly focused on implementing promotional and training initiatives catering to physicians performing gynecological procedures in the office setting. Driving this shift in where procedures are performed is the increased patient comfort in an office environment, as well as the rising popularity of minimally invasive procedures, which are easily performed in physicians’ offices. As a result, procedures such as global endometrial ablation (GEA) and transcervical female sterilization are increasingly being performed in the office setting, also leading to a higher overall number of procedures. For example, Conceptus created a direct-to-consumer campaign targeted at women using traditional birth control measures to educate them on the transcervical sterilization option, available as an office procedure.

The US gynecological device market does face challenges that may hinder growth. It is a mature market, dominated by several large manufacturers, including Hologic, Ethicon, Conceptus, and Boston Scientific, that often compete in multiple segments. Several of the products available in this market are commoditized products with little differentiation that have to compete on price, causing companies to focus on brand recognition in their marketing. Newer or smaller competitors find it difficult to gain a foothold in the market.

“The lingering effects of the economic downturn will also negatively affect the market,” says MRG Analyst Jennifer Smith. “Patients will put off elective procedures, particularly expensive ones like in vitro fertilization (IVF), and facilities will delay the purchase of costly capital equipment such as colposcopes or hysteroscopes. Nevertheless, positive factors will lead to overall growth in this market.”