Intravenous (IV) Tubing OrganizerIntravenous (IV) Tubing OrganizerBME 200/300University of Wisconsin - MadisonOctober 10, 2003Team:Amit MehtaApril ZehmClient:Timothy E. Corden, M.D.Medical Director, Pediatric Critical Care UnitUW Children's HospitalAdvisor:Willis TompkinsUniversity of WisconsinDepartment of Biomedical Engineering0Problem StatementThe goal of this project is to create an intravenous (IV) tubing organizer to prevent entanglement of several IV lines, while maintaining the functionality of each IV tube. This device should ultimately eliminate the hazard caused by multiple IV lines for pediatric patients and at the same time improve hospital efficiency. Background InformationAn intravenous (IV) tube is a soft, flexible catheter of which one end is inserted into a vein to deliver medication, fluids, or nutrition. It can also be used to remove blood for sampling.An IV is commonly inserted into a vein in the lower arm or wrist. IVs are most often used in the hospital, but can also be used in the home for short-term therapy. An IV is usually left in for just a few days, but may be kept in for a longer time (Discovery Health, 2003). IV tubes can be used for numerous purposes, such as administering medication, hydrating a person who is unable to obtain nutrition orally, replacing fluids lost through vomiting, surgery, or injury, giving blood transfusions or blood products, and drawing blood samples (Discovery Health, 2003). The IV tubes are attached at one end to an electronic syringe pump and the other end is attached to the patient. The syringe pump ejects a precise quantity of medication through the IV tube and into the patient. Hospitals including the UW Children’s Hospital use IV tubes to administer medication to pediatric patients.Our client represents the children’s critical unit of the UW Hospital, which means that thepediatric patients often have numerous IV tubes attached to their limbs (up to 8 to 10 lines at a time). Since there is one syringe pump per each IV line, multiple lines can potentially cause confusion and make it difficult to differentiate between separate lines. Furthermore, since each 1IV tube is 1mm in diameter and 2.5 meters long, it is very easy to get them tangled. This is especially the case when multiple IV tubes become intertwined. Hospital personnel refer to this entanglement as “spaghetti.” Spaghetti is especially problematic during the transport of a patientwithin the hospital. During this critical time, the IV tubing must be easily accessible and organized, so staff can immediately locate and correct a problem, should one arise. Currently, massive amounts of jumbled tubing on the patient's bed during transport makes this event dangerous. Even while the patient is stationary, loose IV tubing can be hazardous. Accidentally stepping on the tubing can cause kinking, which consequently stops the flow of vital nutrients and/or drugs. Tripping on the excess tubing can also rip the IV out of a patient, which aside frompreventing flow to the patient, can be extremely painful. Pediatric patients, in particular, are at a high risk posed by spaghetti, simply because of their small size. There have been reports of infant strangulation, suffocation, and even death due to the entanglement of IV tubing (CMAJ, 2002).By designing a device that can separate multiple IV lines as well as minimize disorder, doctors and nurses can place more emphasis on the patient, rather than spending time untangling the IV tubes. The client is interested in a double-ended, spring loaded device, with tape measurer-like capabilities. However, this is not a mandatory requirement. In addition to reeling in tubing, the device should have some organizational features. It should distinctly separate or identify multiple tubes, possibly via color coding.Patent SearchFurther research followed in the form of patent searches to identify any products already in existence that were similar or identical to the one the team was trying to design. This was 2accomplished via the United States Patent Office (USPTO, 2003). The most closely related device found was an IV line separation system, which separates various IV lines from different sources prior to reaching the patient. A device that dispenses IV tubes via a spring-loaded systemdoes not exist at the present time. An alternative option is to use the rewinding mechanism of a tape measurer as a springboard idea. A patent was found of a tape measurer having a quick rewinding mechanism that incorporated gears rather than a spring system. This idea will becomethe basis of one of the possible design options later in this report.Design ConstraintsThere were a number of issues the team had to keep firmly in mind when designing the IV tubing organizer. Due to the unique nature of the environment in which the organizer will reside, there were several special requirements that needed to be considered.First and foremost, the safety of the patient cannot be overly stressed. It is important to be sure that this device does not cause any discomfort to the patient, such as pulling on the IV tubing. Furthermore, the device must be small and mobile. Since the IV tubing itself accompanies a patient in transport, so must the organizing device. Most equipment is placed directly on the patient's bed prior to translocation, so the device must be relatively lightweight. The device should be as discrete as possible, as requested by the client. While the device itself does not need to be sanitary, it must be disposable in accordance with hospital sanitation regulations. The device will be thrown away, following the discharge of a single patient. However, since IV tubing sometimes must be changed every few days, which often precedes a patient’s length of stay, the device must be re-loadable. It may be reused for onepatient. 3The functionality of the IV tube cannot be compromised, since the IV tubing will be in use within the device. For this reason, it must not allow kinking or tearing of the tubing. The device should smoothly let out a line when needed and retract and store excess line when not in use. Ideally, the tubing could be adjustable from either direction, so that both the end leading to the pump and the end directed toward the patient could be altered independently of one another.Since the target audience consists of critically ill patients in a hospital, the device's interaction with an MRI machine
View Full Document
Unlocking...