2018 Private Healthcare Awards

GHP / 2018 Private Healthcare Awards 5 , Best Surgical Drain Product: TubeEvac & Award for Excellence in Patient-Centric Care Products this because I was confused after listening to nurses talk about milking the tubes. “The techniques currently used can cause the tubing to stretch and, in some cases, to double in length. As the tube becomes longer the time required to clear it extends as well. A patient experiencing breast surgery, especially for cancer, can be so overwhelmed with accepting the diagnosis and all of the surgical outcomes and healing, that drain care is an awkward and confusing task for the patient and caregiver try to do correctly. Patients and their caregivers don’t want to hurt the patient, don’t want to pull out the drain from the body, don’t want to leave anything in the tube that can cause infection, etc. They are often times left with a feeling of inadequacy. The TubeEvac device eliminates all that. It puts constant pressure on the tubing so the tube is not stretched but such that most of the fluid is pushed into the collection bulb. You cannot put too much pressure on the tubes or you can rip them – especially the smaller tubes. We have been told of instances where the tubes were torn in two by too much pressure being placed on them while trying to strip the tube.” Despite the unique benefits of this innovation, Vance discusses the issues he and his team have encountered having the technology accepted and how they are working to overcome them. “It has become very difficult to have the TubeEvac device accepted by hospitals, who are most often a part of a larger health system. In most cases, the individual hospitals cannot purchase it unless it accepted by the system. Many times, those decisions are made based on a person who feels that a $5 part is too expensive even though it has been shown time and again to save a hospital overall costs. Physician medical groups associated with hospitals are generally required to purchase only the products that the hospitals have approved. Recently, we have found that to be able to add the TubeEvac device to a hospital’s materials inventory, each department that may be able to use it must have an in-service demonstration and an opportunity to test the product in the clinical setting before giving their stamp of approval. A current hospital has been testing the TubeEvac device for 11 months, with no negative feedback.” Moving forward, Vance is excited by what the future has in store for his firm, as he is proud to conclude. “Looking to the future, we look forward to exploring different types of tubing that could be cleared with the TubeEvac device either in its current or modified form. We are also pursuing different kinds of techniques for clearing other types of tubes. “Overall, the healthcare market is going to get more and more expensive. There are functions which will be eliminated while others will expand. It is going to be difficult to get reasonable treatment in the future as expenses grow and resources diminish, but at TubeEvac we hope to be able to provide patients with the help they need.”