“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.