March 2017

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Page A24 MARCH 2017 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A
IN THE DEATH CARE INDUSTRY
Dedicated and focused, Bill’s knowledge and experience of the
death care industry provides you with value added services
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Bill Newman, CPA
Partner
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By Matt Black
Embalming
Tips & Tools
The Importance
of Hands (Part 3)
After writing the February article, I noticed a post on a
Facebook blog on “Getting those indents out of the hands
where hospital tied the hands together” for transfer. Unfor-
tunately, if this happens to you, I would recommend that
you speak to the hospital about their protocol. A procedure
that has been popular on removing these indents from the
hands prior to embalming is using a pack of Webril saturat-
ed with a Humectant Injection Accessory chemical.
• Elevate the hands as in normal protocol
• Spray the entire hands with a Humectant Injection Ac-
cessory chemical.
• Place a pack of Webril saturated with Humectant In-
jection Accessory Chemical on those indents prior to
embalming.
Not all Humectant Injection Accessory chemicals are
produced in the same manner, so consult with your sales
rep on how their product performs.
Have you noticed that as people age the tissue on the
back of the hands becomes more fragile as a layer of fat
that protects skin from bumps and bruises is lost?
Ecchymosis or hematomas are commonly known as a
bruise. With blood thinners being widely used on the ag-
ing we see more bruising on the hands. Prednisone also
thins blood and increases the chance of bruising. The back
of the hand is a normal site for the IV line which may
cause bruising. The removal of the IV after death can cause
the blood to enter the interstitial tissue surrounding the
small puncture site. Thin skin is easily damaged and any
puncture to the tissue increases the risk of distention and
swelling at the puncture site during embalming. Most ec-
chymosis or hematomas are caused by blood entering in-
terstitial tissue space outside the normal vascular system.
Discolored areas may not clear with normal arterial in-
jection. A simple way to test if the bruised tissue is a post-
mortem discoloration or post-mortem stain is to apply
digital pressure to the bruised tissue. If the blood moves
out and clears from the tissue, this is a post-mortem discol-
oration also known as Livor Mortis. If the blood remains
• The transdermal injection procedure can be repeated
if the discolored area is severe in nature.
The main difference between a Phenol based cauterant
and bleaching agent and a Phenol-Free based cauterant
and bleaching agent is the use of phenol. Phenol chemi-
cal bleaching and cauterant agents are more common-
ly used by mortuary embalming chemical companies.
Phenol is the primary chemical used in most cauterant
and bleaching chemicals. The advantage of Phenol–Free
based cauterant and bleaching agents is that there is no
Phenol odor. Phenol can be corrosive to the skin and the
vapors are not considered safe. If you have spent any time
in an embalming room you’re familiar with the unique
phenol smell.
Both of these chemicals will bleach the discolored tis-
sue. The advantage of both is that they will also preserve,
cauterize and dry the tissue. The bleaching effect of these
powerful chemicals causes the discolored tissue to be-
come very light or white in appearance. It is easier to ap-
ply cosmetic treatments to lighter bleached tissue than
dark discolored tissue.
To minimize the whitening effect, a few drops of eosine
dye can be added to these bleaching products. The dye
will give the bleached area more pink hue color instead of
the whitening effect. It is easier to apply cosmetic treat-
ments to cover pink hue tissue than white tissue.
The ability to stabilize these bruises through transder-
mal hypodermic chemical treatments will significantly
simplify your cosmetic approach and add a more natu-
ral cosmetic coverage. If these skin discolorations are not
treated, the skin will maintain the dark color and could
become worse with skin slip and decomposition making
cosmetic coverage difficult and resulting in a less natural
appearance for families and friends.
In our next installment, we will continue the discussion
of bleaching and cauterizing agents including the use of
surface packs and treatments for discolored fingernails.
Matt Black has been a licensed funeral director and embalmer
in the State of Pennsylvania for over 20 years. He represents The
Dodge Company in Central and Western Pennsylvania. In addi-
tion to being a graduate of the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortu-
ary Science, Matt also holds degrees in Bio-Medical Engineering
Technology and Industrial Management. Matt has also attended
the Fountain National Academy of Professional Embalming Skills,
Springfield, MO, and is licensed in eye and corneal enucleation. He
has presented at Dodge Embalming Seminars as well as numer-
ous local seminars in Pennsylvania. He can be reached by email at
and is immovable, it is a stain. A stain will not be removed by
arterial injection.
This month we focus on stained tissue and a lack of em-
balming solution reaching this tissue.
The use of transdermal hypodermic chemical treatments
shown below can reduce the negative effect of this unstable
tissue, making cosmetic treatment easier. This type of treat-
ment has become popular to help alleviate stained areas and
discolored tissues (bruises). It is recommended to be done pri-
or to embalming because arterial injection could preserve and
fixate the blood within the bruise and in surrounding areas.
The vascular drainage of the blood in the bruised or discol-
ored tissue area could be difficult to remove. Once the blood
becomes fixated in these areas, a formaldehyde reaction with
the hemoglobin in the blood could cause methemoglobin.
This staining effect could be increased in darkness and inten-
sity. The fixation effect from embalming will inhibit the true
abilities of the bleaching action of these bleaching agent prod-
ucts. The bleaching procedure after embalming normally will
become more difficult.
An additional concern is when little or no arterial injection
reaches the bruised area. This lack of distribution could lead
to un-preserved tissue in the bruised area which will actually
get darker in color and allow the decomposition to progress.
The embalmer could consider hypodermically injecting
(transdermally) a Phenol Based or Non-Phenol Based cauter-
ant and bleaching agent into the stained areas. Using a small
syringe and small gauge needle is recommended.
• Prior to hypodermic injection cover the area around the
stained tissue with a protective layer of massage cream or
spray a humectant injection accessory chemical around
the bruise. Enter skin (transdermally) keeping the small
gauge needle as superficial as possible in a fan-like manner.
• Enter the stained tissue at its furthest point and inject
slowly, be careful not to overfill the discolored tissue area.
If the tissue distends slightly, using digital pressure to dis-
perse chemical into the area will help.
• The small gauge needle should be removed slowly and
carefully to avoid any leakage of the chemical to the sur-
rounding area. Any leakage should be controlled by the
protective layer of massage cream or humectant injection
accessory chemical. If these bleaching and cauterant prod-
ucts come in contact with unprotected skin from the leak-
age they could cause bleach spots or streaks to the sur-
rounding skin surface.
Discovering the disconnect between
Strategy and Success By Rolf Gutknecht
Rolf Gutknecht
Tracks 2I can remember it like it was yester-
day: I and some others from my agency team
along with the client’s CMO were sitting
in the office of the CEO for a Fortune 100
company presenting the advertising cam-
paign for the year. The CEO looked at us and
pointedly said, “Strategy is results!” What he
meant was that the strategy doesn’t matter as
long as you are producing re-
sults. This CEO saw: strate-
gy = analysis and execution =
getting things done, and he
attributed more value to do-
ing than to analyzing. Strate-
gy statements like “Being the
brand of choice in the ver-
tical markets we serve” and
similar statements were not
for him. And frankly, I’m not
a fan of them either.
But, any seasoned mar-
keter knows that a market-
ing strategy is about the se-
ries of choices you make on
where to play and how to
win to maximize long-term value. Execution
is producing results in the context of those
choices. Therefore, you can’t have good im-
plementation without having good strategy.
Most everyone would agree that you just can’t
achieve good results without having good ex-
ecution; similarly, most would agree that hav-
ing a good strategy alone is no guarantee for
success. But, too many jump to the wrong
conclusion that this makes execution or im-
plementation more important than strategy.
OK, so let’s look at that for a moment.
It’s pretty obvious to all that creating “The
Strategy” is cool…it’s sexy. Andwhowouldn’t
want to be part of the team that developed
“The Strategy,” right? But actually creating
it right requires thought, knowledge, and
understanding of the audience and market-
place, and creativity. Look at any university
setting and you’ll see that MBA courses stress
strategy. We worry about so-
cial media strategies, mobile
marketing strategies, strate-
gies for enhancing custom-
er engagement or customer
experience, advertising strat-
egies, SEO strategies, lead
generation marketing strate-
gies, sales strategies, and on
and on.
You’ll get no argument
for me when saying that a
well-thought-out and writ-
ten strategy is critically im-
portant to business success.
But here’s something that a
lot of marketing people don’t
always consider to the extent they should:
the soft underbelly of strategy is implemen-
tation. Without implementation, even the
most brilliant strategy is just words, a hope,
an untested premise. We all know this intel-
lectually, of course, but we don’t necessarily
follow through on that knowledge and make
it the priority it should be. Implementation
is generally left to some coordinator or least
experienced member of the team. Or even to
an automated
s
a vast database of cars for sale or lease nationwide.