Ana McConnell, RN, CCRN, is a critical care nurse in Des Moines, Iowa. Working in the ICU, she takes care of patients young and old, and often has to think on her feet to solve problems and engineer creative solutions in a pinch. Ana is a critical care nurse, a problem solver, and a health maker.
Many ICU patients need Foley catheters, but current catheter systems are unruly and difficult to manage. They must be placed below patients’ bladders and often result in patients sitting in uncomfortable positions for the catheter to hang in a correct position.
Ana recognized this gap in patient comfort and leapt into action.
Using her hospital’s Create license with MakerHealth, she shared her idea and received a Creation Kit with materials and tools to prototype ways to make a better Foley hook for her patients.
With MakerHealth Create tools, Ana prototyped a Foley catheter hook that allows nurses to hang the Foley on a variety of surfaces accommodating for the patient’s location or activity.
This versatile hook allowed the Foley to hang below the bladder, off the floor, and without dependent loops. The care team is able to safely manage the Foley catheters and Ana’s patients are more comfortable.
Ana is a MakerNurse and one of the health makers in MakerHealth’s growing network of clinicians who create. Ana works in her hospital’s Makerspace to bring her much-needed designs to life so she can better care for her patients.
