Fitsi Health co-founder Caroline Mitchell talks about the importance of Human-Centered Design, and how this affects their process and work.
Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation: Going Beyond What is Measured Today
Nurses Spotlight: Antonette Gurnani
Mayo Innovation Podcast: Designing for Healthier Patients; Simple Acts of Fitsi
The idea for Fitsi is simply to give patients more. They not only made it easy for patients to clean their hands but also gave them a place to store their phones, glasses and access to comfort items like lip balm and moisturizer. It is a product designed to help patients feel more independent but also save nurses time.
The opportunities for improving the patient experience are vast. Just ask any doctor or nurse and he/she will tell you several improvements that could be made. This experience has taught the team at Fitsi that some of the best ideas for new healthcare products come from empowering those on the frontlines. It is a lot of work but belief that better design means better care, and makes everyone excited to be making a real impact in patients lives. The opportunities are endless, and listen to the whole conversation after the break!
Pasadena Magazine
How Fatigue Can Diminish Healthcare Work Standards
Every nurse knows it, feels it and wishes it was not so. Fatigue is our companion. The longer our day, the more intense our day, and the more shifts worked close to each other, the more fatigue we experience. Now a recent research study from the Journal of Applied Psychology has studied healthcare worker fatigue […]
Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation: Why I Created a Healthcare Company
Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation: I was home for a long weekend visiting my mom, an acute care nurse who taught first year nursing students. Talking in the kitchen one afternoon, she started telling me her idea for a new healthcare product.
“One thing that has always bothered me is that patients can’t clean their hands on their own. Nurses never have enough time to help them and patients don’t think to ask for help. Patients use the bedpan at night, fall asleep and then when breakfast is delivered in the morning with their medications they don’t clean their hands before eating and putting pills in their mouth.”
“Really? That’s horrible,” I replied. Truthfully, I have always loved the theory of medicine but don’t have the stomach for all of the things healthcare workers see and treat on a daily basis. With little knowledge of infection control and the risks involved, I asked my mom a few questions about why this bothered her so much. What she described was scary, borderline infuriating.Imagine a loved one going into the hospital for a standard treatment but then acquiring an infection that ends up being more deadly than the original reason for entering the hospital. It was a cruel reality of healthcare.
Fast forward a few months and a lot of Google searches and I started to realize there really wasn’t anything out there to help patients perform basic hand hygiene and care. It seemed like there was a lot of policing of healthcare workers’ hand hygiene but nothing that would actually make cleaning patients’ hands easier.
I decided to try and help bring my mother’s idea to life. We started by looking at all the little things that could be done to make a patient more comfortable while in a hospital bed. We gave our product the name “Fitsi” – a variation of my mom’s childhood nickname “Fitzy” – to signify health, fitness and overall wellness and began talking to nurses, patients, and everyone else we could about the concept.
These conversations led to workshops in the nursing school where my mom taught. We asked volunteer students to play the role of a “tough” patient. The scenarios they acted out included a patient who refused to take her glasses off at night for fear of losing them. Or a patient who lost his cell phone in the hospital bed sheets and missed an important call from a loved one. Or a patient with painfully chapped lips (a common side effect from medications) but was too shy to say anything for fear of bothering the nurses.
On the flip side, when we talked with nurses about their needs we heard time and time again how they wanted more quality time with patients. Things like looking for a patient’s misplaced glasses in the hospital bed sheets were taking up precious time that nurses would rather spend with patients. We saw a real opportunity to create a product that helped patients and saved nurses time.
We found a product designer and began developing prototypes. We all had full time jobs and lived in different cities. Fitsi weekly calls were on Sundays. Many times they had to be cancelled or delayed but we kept pushing forward. Then, over a year later we had our first 3D printed prototypes. This was the turning point for us. Having something tangible made what we had been working on seem real. We went from a “cool idea” to something people wanted to buy.
This month, we kicked off production for the first 25,000 units and hope to have Fitsi on patient beds by the summer. It is crazy to see your “side project” become your full time job. The risks are real and scary. But also exciting because we know this is something patients really need.
The idea for Fitsi is simply to give patients more. We not only made it easy for patients to clean their hands but also gave them a place to store their phones, glasses and access to comfort items like lip balm and moisturizer. We designed the product to help patients feel more independent but also save nurses time.
The opportunities for improving the patient experience are vast. Just ask any doctor or nurse and he/she will tell you several improvements that could be made. This experience has taught me that some of the best ideas for new healthcare products come from empowering those on the frontlines. It is a lot of work but I firmly believe that better design means better care and I am excited to be making a real impact in patients lives. The opportunities are endless. Fitsi Health is just getting started.
Meet Fitsi – Empowers Patients, Increases Safety, Provides Comfort
Hi I’m Kathy. I’m a nurse, and I created Fitsi, a simple, low cost solution for reducing healthcare acquired infections and improving patient comfort. Let me tell you more about it… Nobody goes to the hospital to get sick. But in the US, 1 in 20 patients will contract a Healthcare Acquired Infection. That […]
Nurses Spotlight: Erin Peters
In a previous interview, Nancy Moughrabi, FNP-BC nominated Erin Peters to participate in Fitsi’s Nurses Spotlight series. She is a hospital based nurse practitioner, caring for pediatric general surgery patients at Children’s at Erlanger. She shares what her ideal pediatric hospital environment would look like and how to create a great patient experience for both pediatric patients and parents.
Spotlight On Patient Safety - Big Names Speak Out At The Patient Safety Summit
Patient safety is finally receiving the notice it deserves. At last month's Patient Safety Summit in Irvine, CA, big names including Bill Clinton and Joe Bidden spoke to increase awareness on issues that effect our healthcare system today and the need for better measures to prevent spreadable infections.
Nurses Spotlight: Ann Schide
We interviewed Ann Schide, MSN, RN, MS, CLNC, LCCE, BSC, an Associate Professor at Chattanooga State Community College. A very committed, caring and innovative nurse..."I speak not from arrogance, but from self-confidence. I believe strongly in this type of advocacy for our health care system and those who need it."
Win - Win: How Infection Prevention Saves Lives & Money
Lives and money are saved with infection prevention programs. A recent study released last week by the CDC demonstrates that patients who had infections while in an intensive care unit were 35% more likely to die within the following 5 years. It is a very powerful study and one that should be a red flag to hospitals across the nation.