Becton Dickinson and Company (BD), founded in 1897, is a global medical technology company that has more than 65,000 employees in 50 countries. BD has a well-established reputation in the industry for patient and healthcare worker safety and improving medical research and clinical laboratories. The company provides innovative solutions that help advance genomics, enhance the diagnosis of infectious diseases and cancer, and improve medication management, diabetes management, infection prevention, surgical techniques, and interventional treatments to advance the world of health.
In the more than 30 years since BD began operations in Taiwan in 1987, its employees have maintained a high degree of enthusiasm and dedication. Jeffrey Wang, BD’s general manager for Taiwan and Hong Kong, describes the company’s main goal as “introducing the innovative medical technology to support Taiwan to improve the quality of healthcare,” enabling BD Taiwan to become an industry leader through breakthrough solution-thinking, while contributing to user satisfaction and social responsibility.
For example, when Taiwan enacted safety needle legislation in 2011, BD vigorously participated in furthering its implementation, assisting hospitals in carrying out the needed education and training, and generally promoting the importance of the measure in preventing needlestick injuries to healthcare personnel. The passage and implementation of this law represented a major step forward for Taiwan in safeguarding medical staff. “We are proud that Taiwan has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to pass such a law,” says Wang.
As part of the effort to become a “leader in breakthrough solution-thinking,” since 2019 BD Taiwan has been actively assisting hospitals in installing innovative automated equipment, taking the lead in the Asia-Pacific region to introduce “Kiestra” microbiology laboratory automation solution and AI image recognition systems.
The current autumn and winter period is the peak time for respiratory infections. Common pathogenic sources include Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus type b, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, etc. Patients with such infections generally have to rely on the subjective judgment of the medical laboratory technologists, which faces the difficult challenge of quickly identifying the pathogens and accurately formulating treatment strategies. In the past, it usually took three to five days to test bacterial pathogens. Now, with the assistance of intelligent equipment in integrating and optimizing various processes, the test results can be released within a day and a half.
“The successful introduction of Kiestra solutions into Taiwan not only greatly shortened the inspection time, but also integrated and interpreted clinical information for pathogen type imaging, physiology and other data; assisted the medical team in the overall assessment; and provided more accurate drug selection and treatment strategy,” says Jeffrey Wang.
Despite the challenges posed this year by the COVID-19 epidemic, BD has continued its efforts to achieve new advances for the benefit of the government, hospitals, and society. Above all, Wang and the BD leadership team are committed to protecting the safety of all employees and their families, ensuring that employees have the best protection and establishing safety procedures for working at home and entering and leaving the office. At the same time, network technology is being utilized to continuously provide the online training required by customers. During the most severe period of the epidemic, BD Taiwan made every effort to ensure uninterrupted product supply, closely track global logistics, and effectively reduce the risk of cargo delays.
In addition to supporting employees and medical units, the Taiwan team is actively cooperating with the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control to help ensure a stable supply of coronavirus detection tools. BD is also continuing to develop a coronavirus quick-screening system (the Veritor Plus System, which can make test results available within 15 minutes), which has obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency-use authorization (EUA). In addition, BD Taiwan is preparing to supply prefilled syringes to support the development and manufacture of local new coronavirus vaccines in Taiwan.
Says Jeffrey Wang: “Our team’s efforts and achievements always closely follow the company’s philosophy of ‘advancing the world of health.’ Hopefully BD Taiwan will serve as a model enterprise in the medical device industry based on customer trust, shareholder satisfaction, industry respect, and employee dedication.”
