Arthrex is in the process of transitioning its Directions for Use (DFU) paper inserts to electronic documents accessible on the internet. This change will affect a large portion of Arthrex products, eliminating the paper DFUs currently included in the respective product packaging.
Arthrex is making this change as part of its Green Policy and to promote sustainability and decrease the environmental burden the use of paper creates on trees, the energy required to turn those trees into paper, as well as the impacts on transportation, water, and landfills.
In addition to environmental benefits, moving toward electronic DFUs (eDFU) will allow Arthrex to offer customers an easy way to locate DFUs without concerns about the document becoming lost or degraded from continual use. This change will also better facilitate Arthrex ability to offer the DFUs in languages well beyond the five we currently offer.
The transition to eDFUs will be long-term as we remove the paper DFUs from thousands of Arthrex products and replace them with access to an electronic version of the document. While this transition occurs over time, you may notice that some products may continue to require the paper DFU, at least until the applicable health authorities allow further transitioning to eDFU. Moving forward, all new products that require a DFU document and are eligible for electronic directions for use per the respective regulations will now use an eDFU.
This symbol string above will be found on labels for products with an associated eDFU document(s). The symbols denote the need for a user to both consult the DFU and where a country-specific telephone number can be found via the locating URL to request a paper copy of the DFU (if desired).
Follow the directions below on how to access eDFUs. Products with an eDFU symbol on the label will have a website address where the user can access the eDFU. In addition, if a customer desires a hard copy, information on how to request a printed paper DFU can be found on the corresponding website.
Access to the Arthrex eDFU website access does not require any additional plugins and is supported by the latest industry-supported browsers, specifically Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge.
If you have questions regarding the functionality of this change, please contact info@e-labeling.eu.
1a. Option 1 to access the eDFU on the Arthrex website:
1b. Option 2 to access the eDFU on the Arthrex website:
2. Select preferred language for the webpage:
3. Choose your search mode preference, Product REF or Product UDI:
4. Enter your search criteria (Key-code = REF/Catalog #, Product Description or UDI/GTIN #):
5. Click the Search button:
6. Select Show supported languages:
7. Choose preferred language of DFU:
8. Click confirm button:
9. Click on downloaded PDF file to open DFU:
