Nurses Draw Inspiration From Oncology Patients to Win 2024 Innovation Challenge

Oncology nurses Kate Shady, Ph.D., RN, OCN, and Krystle Becraft, BSN, RN, OCN, saw an opportunity to improve the safety of patients with central venous catheters (CVCs), commonly known as “central lines.”

CVCs deliver chemotherapy and other interventions directly to the bloodstream. A patient’s central line must be addressed every four to seven days (96 to 168 hours) to decrease the risk of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). On average, patients with CLABSIs remain hospitalized two additional weeks, and their risk of death increases by 15%.

To decrease the risk of infection, the components of the central line must be changed regularly. However, in timing these scheduled changes, electronic documentation can prove to be inconsistent and physical labels can introduce additional risk of infection.

The nurses had a winning idea: To add a visual indicator that alerts when it is time to change the needless connector of a patient’s central line.

‘Capping CLABSI’

Shady and Becraft’s solution explores visual cues to help nurses with consistent maintenance of central lines. To accomplish this, they proposed  color-triggering technology and materials that gradually change central-line connectors from clear to yellow after 96 hours have expired since placement, then progress to red by 168 hours. Clinicians would know to change the central line after the connector turned yellow and before it turned red.

Their pitch, “Capping CLABSI with Color-Changing Technology,” earned top honors at ChristianaCare’s fifth Innovation Challenge. The winning entry was announced at the health system’s inaugural Innovation Summit, a two-day conference held at ChristianaCare’s Newark campus in Delaware.

ChristianaCare’s Innovation Challenge encourages caregivers to find ways to solve the challenges they face in health care today.

“The Challenge acts as a valuable needs assessment, highlighting the important issues that caregivers face,” said Randy Gaboriault, MS, MBA, senior vice president and chief digital and information officer at ChristianaCare.

“This year is particularly special, as we celebrate the first medical device to win, an innovation that emerged from the thoughtful contributions of nurses. It’s a wonderful idea that reflects their firsthand experiences.”

Shady and Becraft believe that their solution will be a gamechanger.

“Patients with cancer and life-threatening conditions are already grappling with their own mortality,” Becraft said. “Adding a CLABSI infection during this time is unfair.”

Shady hopes that their win inspires other nurses to problem-solve creatively.

“It highlights how innovative nursing is and brings more attention to it,” she said.

Innovating tomorrow’s health solutions

This year, the judges received 106 submissions, then selected four finalists, whose creators presented their pitches during the Innovation Summit’s finale.

In addition to the winning entry, the finalists were:

• “CareConnect, an Innovative Digital Platform” pitched by Angela Johnson-Walters, MSN, RN, is a digital platform that would use information from inpatients’ electronic medical records to provide up-to-date snapshots of their care, to replace in-room whiteboards that are updated only twice daily.
• “Virtual Pillbox,” pitched by Scott Haraczy, M.D., is an encrypted digital app that would record a patient’s medications, including the number of pills received and remaining refills, to help them take ownership of their health and improve the medication reconciliation process.
• “Safety AI, Transforming Healthcare Insights” pitched by Doug Coleman, MBA, and Christian Coletti, M.D., is a digital tool that would use artificial intelligence to unlock insights from safety-event data to improve patient well-being.

Catherine Burch, MS, CXA, CUA, vice president of innovation at ChristianaCare, shared her enthusiasm: “Our caregivers, the heart of our health system, exemplify remarkable creativity and dedication.

“They are passionate problem-solvers committed to enhancing patient care and continuously striving to improve the experience for everyone. This shines through in all of this year’s submissions.”