Outcomes Rocket Podcast_SONSIEL Series_Lindsay Roddy.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey, Outcomes Rocket Nation, Saul Marquez here. Have you heard of SONSIEL? That’s the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Leaders. We’ve teamed up with them to put together a podcast series for Nurses Month. In this 12-part series, we’ll magnify and elevate nurse innovators expertise as transformation agents who contribute to health care reform and improved outcomes. Through interviews with these amazing nurse leaders and innovators, we’ll help you connect the dots in a world where nurses are significant leaders recognized for transforming health care and society. Visit outcomesrocket.health/sonsiel to learn more. That’s outcomesrocket.health/sonsiel S O N S I E L to learn more.
Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody, Saul Marquez here with the Outcomes Rocket. Thanks so much for tuning in to this amazing SONSIEL series. Today, I am privileged to host the amazing Lindsay Roddy. Lindsay has been a nurse for eight years in the ICU and recovery room. After starting a Ph.D. program she had an idea for a product that could prevent tubing safety issues during therapy for critical care patients and started a company in 2018 to move the idea forward. This journey fostered much learning trial by fire around business, product design and development, the FDA, IP, et cetera, everything that happens with product development and med device. She and her team will launch this first product this year in 2021. Her experience has given her a passion for how nurses can and should be involved in product innovation from the ground up. After raising almost two hundred thousand dollars in grants and founder investment, the Roddy medical team is now over halfway through, raising their seed round of six hundred grand and partnering with a Wisconsin VC firm to improve outcomes through this nurse-led innovation. I’m excited to chat with you today, Lindsay, and I just want to welcome you to the podcast today.
Lindsay Roddy:
Thanks so much for having me.
Saul Marquez:
Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. So a lot to discuss today. The special series that we’re doing is truly an educational opportunity for all of us to understand the role of nursing in health care, innovation and outcomes improvement. So what a privilege to be here with you today. Before we dive into this innovation that you’ve come up with and how and the story behind it, what is it that inspires your work and health care?
Lindsay Roddy:
My patients. The company was started out of a personal experience, something that almost cost my patient his life. And I don’t remember his name, but I will always remember his face. So it really is how can we make things better? You see a lot of opportunity as a nurse on the ground for how things could be done better. And patients, patients, that’s really my patients are what drives me.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. Yeah. And you feel that this statistic still blows my mind. 50 percent of all care is delivered by nurses and it’s just driven by patient health, by the people, by the families. That’s so important. So talk to us, Lindsay, about how you and your team is adding value to the health care ecosystem and tell us kind of how it all started.
Lindsay Roddy:
Yeah, so as I said, this started with an experience of mine when I was working in the intensive care unit. So I took care of open heart surgery patients. And those patients can have seven to 15 lines and cords coming out of various locations when they come back from surgery. And as we were getting this patient up and moving, which is standard, the line that was in his neck that held his life support the medication got caught and pull out and he started to deteriorate and doctors rushed in the room. We did some interventions and thank God he was OK. But after that I was not. And so it really started with me asking my fellow colleagues, fellow nurses, doctors, physical therapists, has this happened to you or what do you do to prevent this? Because I knew that I was taping a medicine cup to the bedrail to route my lines over. But it’s standard to get these patients up and walking just hours after they get back from surgery and have a breathing tube out because that drives such positive patient outcomes. So we interviewed over three hundred people, but one hundred and fifty of those people were nurses. And this was through the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program. And at these other programs and we found that sixty-four percent of these people had witnessed near misses, meaning something had pulled out, but something happened to the patient was injured. And twenty-three percent of the clinicians, the one hundred fifty clinicians we talked to had witnessed a potentially life-threatening safety event around a line cord. So what that means is there were stories of people tripping over a line, breaking the kneecap or the wrist. A nurse tripped, went unconscious after she hit the ground. Life support becoming dislodged and disconnected because of line issues. There were seven patient deaths reported from these clinicians and it really drove home. There isn’t something out there that’s made to solve the issue that these clinicians are talking about. The majority of these instances happen when we’re moving patients. When we were transporting patients when we were getting them up and walking, which is what reduces facility acquired pneumonia helps get them out of the hospital sooner, reduce length of stay, reduces readmissions. There wasn’t a product made to prevent those kinds of safety events. And so we started to make something. So I started by just gluing things together and making paint drawings, which is as a nurse, not knowing much about business and the beginning of it. That’s just where we started. And then my business partner, Kyle, is an engineer and he came in. He works with some of the top orthopedic surgeons in the world making medical equipment, device delivery, drug delivery systems. And he was inspired by this. He came in in 2019 and really started to make this reality from an engineering perspective. And every single prototype of all of the thirty-five plus prototypes is in the hands of a nurse. And I think that is not normal for medical device development.
Saul Marquez:
I agree it’s normal. It should be right,
Lindsay Roddy:
Right. Yes, that’s one of my life goals here. So and in 2020 also kind of at the precipice of covid and everything, our third business partner, our third musketeer, came in. She is an expert in manufacturing. She’s been a medical device for the last 30 years, worked on everything from taking a product ideating, getting it through commercialization, marketing, packaging, all that stuff. And so with this team and utilizing the knowledge that nurses have to build this from the ground up and make sure we nailed the problem, we nailed a solution to the problems that they were talking about. We will be launching this product very soon. We’ll clear FDA in summer, and then after that, it can go on patients.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that is very exciting. Congratulations, Lindsay.
Lindsay Roddy:
Thank you. It’s been a journey.
Saul Marquez:
So you have cardiac surgery. There’s a mobilisation protocol to help. However, there are lines, tubes, and cords that are part of the picture. But somehow it’s just a mess. And nurses do their hardest to try and help with all of the things that are happening. Accidents happen. People get hurt. But this should not happen. This should not happen. And so help us understand, what is your device called? What does it do?
Lindsay Roddy:
Absolutely. So we call it the Secure Move TLC. But what makes it different than anything else we could find on the market is three key things. One, it prevents pulling and dislodgement. So if it’s on a patient’s arm and there is something that yank’s or pulls, the force will hit the device, not the patient. We’ve tested this and it significantly outperforms the other products that are competitors. It can mitigate three times the typical clinical pull force that you see that can cause a lot of harm because it takes about 11 pounds of force to pull out Central IV line. This can mitigate 30 plus pounds. So it’s made to prevent dislodgement. It’s also made to accommodate up to eight lines to the cords and various sizes and types because there is so much variation in what you see every day with patients between EMS, E.R., ICU, the floor, and then it’s made to move with the patient. So getting patients up and moving in early mobility programs, even when people are very critically ill, can save hospitals up to three point seven million a year based on the research. Again, with readmission, reduce length of stay, reduce rehab time, so many morbidity and mortality statistics. And so it’s lade for the mobility in the transport that what we were talking to nurses, doctors, physical therapists. This is when these events were happening. So we designed it for those scenarios. It can move the patient from a bed rail to their arm to multiple locations. So it’s made to be pretty versatile and no adhesives. It wraps around the arm.
Saul Marquez:
Ok, is that it right there? Is it right there?
Lindsay Roddy:
This is one of them. But yeah, it’s made of it’s comfortable for a long time. So this can be on a patient for up to thirty days. All biocompatible medical grade materials and it’s manufactured in the United States.
Saul Marquez:
So that’s awesome. Well, folks, Lindsay, showing me this now if you’re listening to this, I see you can’t see it, but it’s a clip that goes around the arm or it goes around an IV pole and you could fasten all of these cords, lines and tubes. TLC, I love that TLC. That’s awesome. Oh, OK. Very nice. Yep. Yep. There are parts for all of them and just fit nicely. Oh look at that. She’s pulling on it and man it ain’t going nowhere. I love it. And so a lot of times it’s being in the room, it’s being part of those protocols that we know are good for our patients that we know make a difference. But we haven’t completed the last mile, so to speak, on the protocol. And so that last mile, the protocol is all of the complications that Lindsay and this one hundred and fifty person group of clinicians she was interviewing, they were finding the near misses, the incidences. And so those don’t have to happen. And so, Lindsey, you know, this is a great example of how nurse innovation is making a difference for all of us. What would you say you believe people need to know that maybe they don’t know about the role of nursing and improving outcomes in business?
Lindsay Roddy:
So one of the things that I’ve been so impressed by in meeting many members of SONSIEL and meeting many other nurses is we often think about nurses in the clinical setting and that’s so important. But we are capable of a lot more. I have so enjoyed learning from nurse lawyers, nurse engineers. One of the things that I’ll say on the product side, just imagine if all of the products that we use as nurses just disappeared. I’m talking blood pressure cuff, monitors, wheelchairs, everything. And that may seem like a very absurd thing to say, but it drives home the point that we rely on products to do our job versus touch more products than anybody. And yet we are not involved in medical device development and testing the way that they need to be. And I’m seeing that’s how this came to be. And I could give you some examples of why we should be involved from an FDA perspective or from this is where we don’t think about this normally about being involved in the space. Nurses are capable of so much and bring a lot of perspective in how the health care process and I am excited to get this into the system. We found a gap in bringing nursing knowledge to the table. I can’t tell you how important it was to have every Single Prototyp be in the hands of a nurse. That’s what drove the modifications, the requirements for this device. And that’s what was able to make us have us make it different than anything else that we were able to find and really solve a problem.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s huge. You are solving a big problem with this. And so give us a example of when you saw your nursing team provide a great solution to a problem. Obviously, this is one. What else have you seen?
Lindsay Roddy:
I really enjoyed meeting many nurses through SONSIEL and just connecting over LinkedIn and other ways. So there is a nurse out of California that’s actually two years ago he and his business partner, who is also a nurse, WON the American Nurses Association Innovation Award. And it was for self inflating seizure that instead of using all of these blankets to coat the bedrails, which can get contaminated and have significant cost to wander and all these Things, it’s the only disposable self-inflating seizure pad. And so they’re selling it out on the West Coast. Brian Mohica is another one who is pretty prominent on Linkedin, developed a device for catheters, for patients, when they go home, they can be very irritating and they’re these special pants that just prevent pulling that allow more comfort and more normalcy for these patients. Another nurse out of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is doing research on infusion pumps and found that the infusion pumps that own the majority of the market are up to 30 percent inaccurate. And it’s all based on where nurses are putting the pump, where they’re putting the bags, what’s the patient’s blood pressure? Where is it positioned? Are there dependent loops in the tubing? And these are things that because nurses were not involved in the FDA testing, most likely the testing was not realistic to the kinds of scenarios that we see every day. And so it was very eye-opening to me when she started talking to me about this, because it explains some of the weird things that I might have seen in critical care when we’re using life-support drugs, norepinephrine and there are weird things that happen like why is this? So that’s also an area where nurses, I think, need to be more involved is in the FDA testing, aside from the medical device testing. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity here. And it’s not something we typically think about being involved in, but it’s a very important part of practice.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s a great point. And so on the one hand, we’ve spent a large part of the series talking about nurse involvement and innovation in this infusion pump example. Lindsay, it’s an opportunity for us to make something that standard of care and really good even better because if you’re doing 30 percent inaccurate stuff, there’s an opportunity to be better. So make this technology that we’re all so dependent on that standard of care even better. I think it’s a great, great example. Yeah. And it’s the loops and the things that you know about, all those things that you mentioned, that, hey, throw them into the mix and then see how you can make this thing work better, right? Yeah, I love it. Great example. What would you say is one of the biggest setbacks you’ve experienced and a key learning that came out of it?
Lindsay Roddy:
I’m going to reformat that question, OK? Well, I would say there wasn’t a tackle period in time where our team sat back and just looked at each other and said, oh, no. However, this has been an enormous learning curve. Nobody handed us a roadmap for how to do this. A lot of this was trial by fire, trial by error, trying to figure this out. How do you even know how you’re supposed to patent something or what route to take that way? How do you protect your idea? How do you know what your pathway is? How do you know about reimbursement? This has been through a lot of trial and error. There’s just been a lot of learning along the way and no one will hand it to you. But this is also why I’m so passionate about helping nurses get to this place. Where do you have an idea? Awesome. How do we make this a reality or how do we really test that this has a spot in the market for you? And how can we bring that to light so that you can bring this to your patients? One of the things that I will always remember is I went to this conference at the Ohio State University Innovation Conference. There was a nurse that was an E.R. nurse. And when she decided to move into a startup company, she said one thing. She made the decision for her and that’s she realized that she would have to spend two hundred years at bedside full time to impact the same number of patients that she could at this company that was making a product that could help her patients in a year. And this is a way to bring nursing knowledge to light is through products, services that meet a need as well.
Saul Marquez:
So well said, the scalability of a product that is delivered across a distribution channel to the broader base of patients ather rather just one. I’m not saying just but beyond the bedside because the care being delivered at the bedside is critical. And if you have a passion to just kind of do more. There’s so many pathways as Lindsay is sharing so many great examples of how it’s being done today. So what are you most excited about today, Lindsay?
Lindsay Roddy:
I am incredibly excited about seeing this device on on patients.
Lindsay Roddy:
I have been even now still keeping the nurse that we’ve talked to surprised. And there are people who are interested in trying this, interested in and working with us to get this out there to patients. I’m so excited. It will be a very emotional moment for me when I get to see this patient, because this product would have prevented what happened to me, where my patient lost his life. And I want that not to happen again for anybody else. If we can if we can make that happen. So getting this out there this year will be such a big thing. I am so excited. This has been, what, like a four year journey or so to get to this point.
Saul Marquez:
It is very exciting and we’re excited for you and we’re excited for everybody that will be the beneficiary of this tool. That will help with the overall therapy and protocol to get them home sooner, healthier and so fantastic. Lindsay, I really appreciate your perspective and sharing with the listeners the importance of nursing and the involvement of improving and developing new devices to help all of us give us a closing thought. What should we be thinking about? And then what’s the best way that the listeners could learn more about you or get in touch with you?
Lindsay Roddy:
I would say keep questioning. Keep questioning how things are normally done. And just because you might not have experience with something and it might seem like, oh, my goodness, for me at the beginning it was how could I get involved in the business of this or the engineering side of this? You can absolutely do that. Don’t limit yourself. You are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for. And I would say the best way to get a hold of me, because I have a passion for seeing nurses get involved in the space, contribute in the space. The best way to get a hold of me would be through LinkedIn is one of the ways me personally and then our website is www.roddymedical.com. You can contact us through the website as well. So that would be the best way. I’m also involved in some school in Nurse Innovation Hub and some other innovation groups as well. So I look forward to seeing you there as well if you’re listening.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. Thanks for the invite, Lindsay. And folks will leave links to all the ways that Lindsay shared how you could get in touch with her and learn more about the work that she and her team are doing at Roddy Medical. So, Lindsay, thank you. This has been awesome. We appreciate you. We appreciate what you do. And certainly looking forward to staying in touch.
Lindsay Roddy:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Likewise.
Saul Marquez:
Thanks for tuning in to the SONSIEL Nurse Leadership series. For the Show notes and to learn more about how you could have nurses join your mission, visit us at OutcomesRocket.Health/SONSIEL. That’s OutcomesRocke.SONSIEL.
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