The 3M (NYSE:MMM) Health Care’s medical solutions business announced upgrades to advance the delivery of certain wound care technologies.
A new 3M Veraflo Cleans Choice Complete dressing kit and a software upgrade for the 3M VAC Ulta therapy unit were introduced at no increased cost to the customer.
3M said in a news release that the new offerings help to simplify the care delivery processes for clinicians using Veraflo negative pressure wound therapy with installation and help to make dressing changes easier, faster and less painful for patients when compared to previous Veraflo therapy dressings.
Veraflo therapy is used for patients with open soft issue wounds to help cleanse and stimulate the formation of granulation tissue. The company pointed to a recent publication — titled Effects of Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy with Instillation versus Standard of Care in Multiple Wound Types: Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis — that demonstrates significant clinical advantages and economic savings with Veraflo against other advanced wound therapies, including traditional negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT).
Used in conjunction with Veraflo therapy, the Veraflo Cleanse Choice Complete dressing kit helps to disrupt, soften, solubilize and remove thick, exudate and non-viable tissue when immediate wound cleansing is needed or when surgical debridement must be delayed or is not possible.
“3M offers a broad range of wound care solutions because clinicians need a robust tool selection,” Dr. Ronald Silverman, M.D., 3M Health Care senior vice president of clinical affairs and CMO said in the release. “We continue to find ways to innovate to meet their unique wound care needs and address the changing nature of wound care. Today’s wound care patients are often sicker and have more comorbidities, making their wounds more complex to treat and increasing the demands on clinicians’ time.
“We strive to make our products easier to use to help save clinicians’ valuable time and, ultimately, transform patient outcomes and improve their lives.”
The new software upgrade — which includes the 3M Smart Instill feature for use with Veraflo therapy — automates therapy initiation to make that process easier. It also features animated video troubleshooting, an instill phase postpone feature, a therapy inactive alarm time delay and updated default therapy settings. The updated settings were implemented based on the recommendations of a global panel of wound care leaders, 3M said.
Software upgrades have been completed in all U.S. rental units and will begin to be implemented in owned units in the third quarter of this year.
3M developed the new dressing kit to simplify dressing application. It is a single piece, rather than the current three-piece dressing. The change was made based on clinician feedback.