TECHNICAL COMMITTEE

The SDMA has a very active Technical Committee that addresses a wide variety of topics important to the dressings industry. Our current activities include:
 
Standards
We are represented on numerous BSI and CEN committees and working groups dealing with Quality Systems, Sterilization, Nomenclature, Performance Testing etc.

We provide the secretariat for BSI CH117/1 committee that reviews proposed Standards for dressings and which provides the platform whereby new  topics can be raised as potential new standards work.

At European level, several experts from SDMA member companies contribute to the work of CEN TC205 WG9 which deals with Dressing Standards.

Quality Systems for Medical Devices
SDMA has commented on recent drafts of ISO 9001:2000 in respect of the needs of the industry for regulatory purposes. Currently, together with our colleagues in ABHI, we are commenting on the possible revision of ISO 13485 which relates to the specific quality system needs of the medical devices industry.

Performance Testing
The SDMA acts as the catalyst to facilitate the development of performance tests for specific properties of dressing products. Ideally these test methods will relate as closely as possible to the function of a product in a clinical situation. The intention is not to determine a specific performance level but to establish a method which will allow clinicians to decide which product is most appropriate to the condition they are treating.

When a method has been accepted as being capable of giving reproducible results, it can be fed through the standards network for adoption as an accepted means of assessing a particular property in a dressing.