ICS provide an innovative solution to B.Braun for their customer education


ICS are proud to have assisted global medical supplier B Braun Medical Ltd in two contracts for the central England and Yorkshire areas.

ICS Field Sales Manager for UK North, Brian Ogden, said B Braun secured two large contracts to supply a large number of hospitals with a revolutionary IV fluid container, the Ecoflac plus.

“B Braun had a six week period from October 2006 where they were required to train every nurse likely to use the container, in each of the contracted hospitals in the Central and Yorkshire regions,” he said.

“We provided a cost-effective, temporary workforce to deal with this unusually high level of work.

“This solution helped free up staff in the sales team at B Braun who would have been attempting to provide a large volume of in-service training, instead of concentrating on their proper job of selling more products,” said Mr Ogden.

The Ecoflac plus is a PVC-free IV fluid container which collapses in on itself during infusion, ensuring the label remains legible at all times. The Ecoflac plus also has two sterile ports, which can be used for adding drug additives.

Mr Ogden said “B Braun employ 11 clinical nurse specialists who perform hospital in-service training, but they quickly realised they didn’t have sufficient staff to complete this amount of training in the allotted timeframe”.

“Within a very short period, ICS had found more than a dozen suitable nurses for this position,” he said.

“A group of 14 nurses attended a training day where they were given some background about the product and taken through the type of in-service training session they would provide for the nurses in the chosen hospitals.

“B Braun then chose 10 nurses from this group to work along side their own staff to conduct the training. They later hired several more ICS nurses due to the large scale of the undertaking,” he said.

Due to the successful implementation of Ecoflac plus into Central England and Yorkshire hospitals, B Braun once again called on the services of ICS.

“B Braun had secured a further three contracts to supply Infusion Pumps to individual trusts: Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent and Northwick Park in London,” said Mr Ogden.

“Again, B Braun held a training course for half a dozen Critical Care or A&E trained nurses and they then carried out the infusion pump training, mainly in acute areas of the selected hospitals. It was very successful.”

Mr Ogden said hiring temporary non-contracted staff was a great innovative way for private companies to utilise the services of skilled nurses.

“In the past, many private companies never considered this as an option.”

“It is certainly a cost-effective way for companies to fulfil their intermittent in-service training needs, compared to employing nurses themselves or diverting their sales force from their selling duties,” he said.

Christine McCabe, B Braun Marketing Manager for Infusion Management Systems said without the support from (ICS), the in-service training would have taken twice as long to complete.

“Our customers were extremely happy with the implementation of the new pumps and we received excellent feedback,” she said.

“We covered a very large area in a small timeframe, which we couldn’t have achieved without them.”

Lucy Heard who co-ordinated the placement of clinical staff said the contract had run very smoothly.

“We also received very good feedback from our nurses regarding both contracts with B. Braun,” she said.

“We initially looked for well-presented nurses who were confident, with outgoing personalities and found many who suited the role perfectly.”