Surgeant trains clean room workers

A chief of surgery trains WOM cleanroom employees

A look inside the activities in the operating room

24. September, 2019 Work at WOM

WOM is one of the market leaders in minimally invasive surgery in the insufflator and suction/irrigation pump sector. To permit the performing of minimally invasive surgery, these devices transport medical CO2 gas or sterile fluids into the body via complex tube sets in order to expand or irrigate body cavities such as the abdominal cavity or the knee joint.

Clean room production WOMThe tube sets, which can be equipped with various functions such as warming, humidification, and filtering, are produced in the cleanroom at WOM.

From injection molding of individual parts to assembly and packaging of the tube sets, these steps all take place in the cleanroom.

Tube sets in everyday surgical practice

The cleanroom employees are very precisely trained in the individual production and testing steps to facilitate maximum quality. But where and how are the products used? What happens during surgery on those rare occasions when there is a problem with a tube set?

Dr. Krüger at a WOM trainingDr. Colin M. Krüger, Chief Physician of the Department of Surgery | Center for Robotics at Berlin-Rüdersdorf Hospital, came to WOM’s production site in Ludwigsstadt to discuss these questions and train employees in how to use the tube sets. Dr. Krüger has been supporting WOM as a reference physician since 2005 and has accompanied the development and clinical validation of many insufflators and pumps. For example, he performed the very first operations for various generations of insufflators from 2007 until today and provided valuable feedback.

In the training event, the insufflation and pumping tube sets and their function were presented from the point of view of a physician. In particular, the special features and advantages of warming, humidification, and filtering were explained from the point of view of the patient and the surgical team.

In the subsequent round of questions, the cleanroom employees asked many interesting questions, among other things, what happens when a tube set fails during surgery? What does this mean for the surgical team and the patient? Dr. Krüger explained that in non-critical OP situations, switching to a new tube set may take 5–10 minutes and surgery cannot continue during this time. In critical surgical situations (bleeding in the surgical field) this can lead to abandonment of the minimally invasive procedure and switching to an open procedure.

Practical training for identification and motivation

Afterwards it was determined that this type of training, in which employees come face-to-face with direct users of their products, increases identification with their own job and provides a big motivational boost for their own work. After all, WOM makes products that are used on human beings, and any one of us may have to undergo surgery one day.

Now the WOM ACADEMY is striving to make original commentary by reference physicians available in future in digital formats to all employees. This is being done in particular to enable them to experience use of the products in a clinical setting and so this material can be utilized for internal employee training.

Stefan Kürbis

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