Picture taken during a Co-Construction session with a nurse.

Video of a story used to discuss the work of a nurse and to focus on feeding tube insertions.

Graph of an estimation of how many feeding tubes are inserted in different parts of the world.

This project was about feeding tube insertions. When inserting feeding tubes a lot of things can go wrong. During this project I investigated the needs of nurses that insert feeding tubes. The final result of this project was a proposition of how a new device can help the nurses should be introduced.

Description

This project initiated from the problem that the position of feeding tubes in humans is hard to verify. Feeding tube insertions are performed at different departments of a hospital and home care. Feeding tubes are mostly needed for dehydrated and underfed patients. After a feeding tube has been inserted there are several ways to verify its position. The problem with the current methods of verifying the position of feeding tubes is that statistically accidents happen, because the methods are not safe enough. The assessment of the position of the feeding tubes is based on sight and hearing of the nurses who insert the feeding tubes. The aim for this project was to investigate whether the users (nurses) need help with the assessment of the position of the feeding tubes. The current and future users were important for this project because they are the main target group for this new device. In order to understand the users’ needs, interviews with experts and users were conducted together with Co-Construction sessions with the users. The study not only focused on the need for improvement, but also on unexplored parts within the Dutch health care system. A calculation of how many feeding tubes are inserted in different parts of the world and what diversity of the used feeding tubes is was made.

A new device called ‘Safe positioning device for feeding tubes’ was developed by the departments of Electrical Engineering and Industrial Design of the TU/e. The device theoretically helps the users to assess the position of feeding tubes after insertion. Through the method of Co-Constructing stories (in which the participants are provided with a story and then are asked to give a similar story from their own experience; see video on the left) I learned that the protocol the nurses use at the hospital should include the new device, but only as a second choice for verifying the position of feeding tubes. The reason for this comes from the needs of the nurses. The nurses' needs are already perfectly fulfilled by the Aspiration method in most of the cases. The nurses of the home care department can be really helped by the new device. Their needs are overall on a worse level than those of the nurses at the hospital.

By a calculation I estimated how many feeding tubes are inserted in other parts of the world. The estimation of the National Patient Safety Agency of the United Kingdom was used to calculate how much feeding tubes are inserted in other parts of the world. The health care indicators of the World Health Organization were used to understand how to estimate feeding tube insertions of other parts of the world.

Through several interviews with doctors I saw that the managements of departments can profit by the new device. Costs of X-Rays can be removed by using the new device. The departments that are most probably the best departments to approach are ,for example, the Children Department of the MMC.

Coach

dr. Wei Chen

Clients

Industrial Design and Electrical Engineering Departments of the TU/e