Inserting central lines, breaking glass ampules, and many other daily tasks of a hospital nurse or an anesthesiologist can be brutal on the fingers, especially for older clinicians and those with arthritis. Matthew Ostroff, a PICC line nurse in New York, designed a simple but effective little device to help with removing Luer Loks from central lines and pin knots from peripheral IVs, as well as to make opening ampules safer.
The MedeGrip is made of foam and provides two opposing surfaces to make grabbing onto small, rigid components more effective. This is a big improvement on the popular, but somewhat dangerous, technique of using a hemostat to grab onto the wings of endcaps and other small plastic devices. Moreover, breaking open glass ampules is responsible for about a quarter of all sharps injuries in hospitals, and MedeGrip provides a considerably safer option over using gauze. It gives a nurse a tight grip on the ampule and provides protection to the hands, all while not covering the whole of the ampule so that you can see what you’re working on. Digging around the gauze to find missing glass pieces is also a thing of the past.
The idea came to Ostroff when he recalled his mother using a rubber grip to open glass jars. After some creative thinking, trying out a bunch of different materials, and finally prototyping the device, MedeGrip is now a realized product that may soon become standard in central line kits. Ostroff hopes that MedeGrip will make changing central line catheters a pain free activity, leading to greater compliance of doing so on a proper schedule.
Ostroff has applied for a patent for the MedeGrip, and, because it is a tool that comes in contact with medical devices, it requires FDA approval that is expected later this year. It’s still not clear how the MedeGrip will be distributed, but we’re hoping it will be a standard part of central line kits, the price of which shouldn’t be affected by the new addition.
Product page: Medegrip…