This summer, skin is in – as it has been at Medline officially and increasingly since 2000, when it began a 25-year effort to help transform skin care through innovative products and clinical support.

In celebration of this milestone anniversary over the coming weeks and months, you’ll see a new series on the Medline Newsroom that explores the evolution of Medline’s approach to skin care and healthcare overall and the technological innovations that have helped shape our approach to meeting our customers’ needs.

Medline’s entrance into the skin care market began in 2000 with the acquisition of Carrington’s skin and wound care products. Most central to Medline’s skin care portfolio is the Remedy line, which launched in 2004 and has grown into a comprehensive system of products designed to help with skin care needs across all points of care. After multiple product launches through the years, including standouts such as Remedy Olivamine, Remedy Phytoplex, DriGo-HP and Remedy Wipes, Remedy went through a rebranding in 2023 to introduce more intuitive product labeling, an enhanced color-coding system to help nurses quickly and confidently identify the purpose of each product, and updated educational information on packaging to clearly outline how to use products effectively.

“What has made Remedy so successful through the years is its ability to connect with our customers and help address their day-to-day skin care needs for patients,” said Evan Oravec, Medline Remedy group product manager. “We listen to our customers and are constantly looking at ways to innovate through new products or redesigning packaging and product instructions to help enhance identification and utilization of the correct product.”

Handling the pressure

But the company’s commitment to skin care certainly doesn’t stop with Remedy. Medline also has continuously evolved its offerings to include accompanying skin care guidelines, educational programs and in-servicing through Medline’s team of clinicians and skin health specialists.

“What started as an acute-care, hospital focus has transitioned into addressing skin care prevention across all care settings, particularly an increased focus on nursing homes and home health,” said Patricia Turner, director of clinical services for Medline’s acute care skin health sales team.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prolonged pressure from sitting or lying for long periods of time results in 1 in 10 nursing home residents developing pressure injuries, or bedsores, a medical condition in which skin and tissue break down.

“We all need to be focused on pressure-injury prevention,” said Kaila Martin, Medline’s manager of customer success for post-acute care skin health. “Patients transition from acute care to post-acute care all the time, so I believe communication is key. Our clinical team assists each other with creating skin health education and makes sure to keep in touch on what is happening across our healthcare settings to ensure effective collaboration.”

Martin and Turner are two members of Medline’s team of skin health specialists who have helped emphasize over the years why skin care is so important.

“Having the right products is important, but to take it a step further, our clinical teams go into customers’ facilities and conduct a discovery assessment to observe what these facilities are doing and what their staffs know and don’t know about our products,” Martin said. “The guidelines and education we help create for skin health nurses, it’s about helping the end user, the bedside nurse, so they understand why these steps in skin care are so important.”

Greater ease, greater engagement

The future of healthcare is in new technologies and more engaging methods to get the most out of people’s natural desire for learning, socializing, competition and achievement. Already, technology plays a crucial role in helping to personalize care plans and provide task reminders or notifications to healthcare staff to drive consistency and efficiency.

Over the last 25 years, Medline has introduced many such technologies to empower staff, including the FitRight CONNECT Wetness Sensing System, a wearable sensor that provides real-time data to help manage urinary incontinence, and the NE1 wound assessment tool to help promote accurate wound assessment, standardize documentation and select proper products for treatment.

Additionally, the concept of “gamification” – livening up healthcare education sessions by turning them into games or contests – has become a growing trend, appealing across generations and providing a fun way to reinforce care protocols. Medline’s Remedy Rainbow skin health workshop, for example, helps engage bedside staff with a unique and collaborative learning activity. Using Remedy Rainbow, a Candy Land-style game board, clinicians learn how to properly identify different types of skin damage and the right Medline products to apply.

Look for more Medline’s contributions to skin health in a continuing installment of this anniversary series. In the meantime, you can learn more here about Medline’s skin health care capabilities.