I’ve been with Hollister Incorporated for 43 years working at our Kirksville, MO, facility. In that time, I’ve supported various Hollister product lines with different roles and responsibilities. Currently I work on the molding team for our AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fasteners.

Seeing the AnchorFast products used on my own family members over the years, I understand how instrumental my involvement has been in making quality products that help our users experience a better quality of life.

Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to train my coworkers in a variety of projects, and in doing so, I try to instill integrity and good work ethics into everything we do. Recently, I was tasked with learning and then training most of my crew on our unique AnchorFast shuttle-assembly machine. This piece of equipment assembles the gliding tube shuttle with the tube wrap and applies the adhesive strip.

Patients deserve the best ET tube securement device and I know that this assembly process will be used to do just that. I’m proud to be a part of producing this product.

With my retirement only a year away, I’m happy to know that the legacy I’ll leave behind is to do the best you can in making a quality product for those who use it, so that they may have a more rewarding and dignified life.

Engineers commonly design from their own perspective and not necessarily from the eyes of the user. If you have to stop and think about how to use our products, we’ve designed them wrong.

I’ve been with Hollister Incorporated for almost 27 years, working on the new product development and quality engineering teams. Currently as part of the new product development team, I have contributed to the design and development of a variety of Hollister products, including our Critical Care products.

We are dedicated to looking outward to the needs of healthcare professionals, like you, and the people you serve. Our AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fasteners were designed to be simple to use. We know that there is no time to waste when you need to use a product like the AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fastener. Our goal in making AnchorFast products was to help stabilize oral endotracheal tubes and provide easier access for oral care, ultimately resulting in positive patient outcomes.

Alongside my coworkers, I recently visited a local hospital to understand and learn how AnchorFast products are being used. We listened to clinicians and gathered insights that will help us continue to enhance our AnchorFast portfolio to meet the needs of the ever-changing medical landscape.

After the visit, it wasn’t long before I received this message from a clinician:

“Thank you and your colleagues for welcoming the clinical feedback … It was extremely valuable to our group as well. I can tell you that every one of the Supervisors was impressed and felt that this was an example of customer service at its best. They appreciated the time and effort you took into bringing the Hollister product experts.”

By listening to our customers and those they serve, we gain a better understanding of how we can meet the current needs with new solutions and improvements.

I’m proud to be part of an organization that has a mission to make life more rewarding and dignified for people who use our products and services.

I’m a new product development engineer at Hollister Incorporated and I’ve been with the company for about a year and a half, a majority of which has been dedicated to the design and development of AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fasteners. In my short time here, I’ve had the privilege of designing product features within the AnchorFast portfolio and witnessing the true commitment Hollister has to serve others with humility, compassion, and perseverance through these products.

I’ve been personally touched by the overwhelmingly positive response that the product continues to receive worldwide.Whether at a conference or in a hospital setting, when clinicians see my Hollister badge, they instantly recognize the company behind this amazing product and are eager to share their experiences with it. They speak of its ease of use and how the patients’ families are happy to see their loved ones without excessive tape masking their faces.

Our team can create a direct and immediate impact on patient outcomes by designing new products, but we can’t do that without your clinical expertise. Through market research and interviews, we carefully listen and work hand-in-hand with clinicians to incorporate new product features and improvements.

The AnchorFast design was crafted with the customers’ needs in mind, especially with the AnchorFast Guard product. Your feedback drove us to develop an integrated bite block, which aims to better protect your patients’ airways.

As the team and I continue to innovate within the AnchorFast product portfolio, I hope to have the opportunity to meet and interact with more of you in our effort to deliver powerful solutions focused on improving patient care.

My career as an RN began 28 years ago in a medical intensive care unit (MICU) in Birmingham, Alabama. Back in those days, the standard procedure to secure endotracheal tubes involved the use of tape or twill cloth. Unfortunately, this technique commonly led to skin breakdown on the face and lips, often considered an unavoidable risk of intubation. Severe cases even required intensive wound care or surgical intervention. The fact is, although there were protocols and procedures being followed to help avoid these complications, skin issues with oral intubation continued to persist. At the time, other forms of securement were fairly rare, and usually too expensive to be considered a viable option. Eventually, a global focus on the prevention of pressure ulcers would change the industry.

Clinical practice had introduced me to the quality products Hollister Incorporated had to offer. In 2009, I was very pleased to have the opportunity to come aboard as a clinical nurse educator for the Hollister Incorporated Critical Care business. This position allowed me to interact with clinicians on a daily basis, build relationships, and gain insight into how our products not only affect the lives of patients, but also the clinicians that use them. I quickly learned that the AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fastener was a product making a clear impact in the market.

This experience gave me a solid foundation for the opportunity to transition to sales specialist position in 2013. It is a pleasure to work for a company with such integrity, patient focus, and complete commitment to developing products like AnchorFast and AnchorFast Guard oral endotracheal tube fasteners. These products have truly revolutionized how we care for patients. Currently, more than 300 hospitals in my territory alone use AnchorFast products as their ET tube securement device of choice. With the introduction of the AnchorFast Guard product, almost 90% of the major facilities in this same territory utilize one or both of the devices.

I was recently talking with a nurse I met all those years ago in MICU. She remembered the terrible issues we used to have with tape and twill. She still works in that same unit, but they have been using AnchorFast products for several years now. Other devices have been tried, yet nothing compares to the benefits of AnchorFast. This nurse told me that even though she doesn’t think about it a lot, implementing the AnchorFast product played a major role in improving the overall quality of care for their ventilated patients. I greatly respect her opinion, because I know this particular nurse is brutally honest … it’s one of the reasons I married her 20 years ago.

When I first started selling AnchorFast oral endotracheal tube fasteners, I could not believe the name recognition and reputation that it had in the market. As senior sales specialist and now celebrating five years at Hollister Incorporated, I’ve been able to experience the consistent performance of AnchorFast products.

I have one of the largest AnchorFast sales territories in the company, with a majority of hospitals using the product today. When we came out with the AnchorFast Guard product, the advantage of an integrated bite block encouraged more hospitals to start using the product on their patients.

It has truly been a pleasure to sell such a well-respected product. It provides a valuable service for our customers who use it, while treating patients with dignity. Almost on a daily basis, I have respiratory therapists and nurses tell me unsolicited how reliable the AnchorFast product is and how it makes their everyday job easier. I have clinicians who have told me that AnchorFast products bring them confidence and satisfaction – so much to say, that if they or a relative required an ET tube, even they would want to have the AnchorFast product holding that tube.

The mission of Hollister Incorporated is to make life more rewarding and dignified for the people who use our products and services. Over the years, Hollister has listened to feedback from its customers and continues to make the AnchorFast product a better and better product.

We aim to work with you, solve any issues you might have and make your lives easier. Together, we want the patient to win.