Medical device packaging plays a vital role in patient health and the intensive user environment. When little conscious thought is given to packaging, it has the potential to compromise patient outcomes.Seven focus groups consisting of total of 21 operating room healthcare personnel were conducted in the greater Lansing and Cleveland areas and analyzed with a coding scheme. Research objectives were: to identify common problems associated with medical device packaging in order to provide a basis for future research. The most promising research avenues were identified by organizing focus group data into qualitative "thought units" based on their frequency, salience and relevance to medical packaging design. Different packaging features were ranked by their importance level.Participants' responses to focus group questions (N=1095 thought units) converged around the themes of: opening and aseptic presentation, quick identification and packaging waste. Findings suggest opening and aseptic presentation were of primary concern to respondents; 49.7% of total thought units were categorized as opening and aseptic presentation while 16.4% of recorded units focused on the identification of contents. Congruent with these findings, participants ranked grip space, preopening integrity, seal/peel strength and easy to read label as most important.
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