Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/597435
t m c » p u l s e | n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 5 7 water. While that works the majority of the time, every now and then Sheaffer and his colleagues encounter a patient who has suffered a chemical injury—those patients need to be irrigated for a very long time, until the chemical is totally washed out. This necessitates a nurse or technician holding the water hose for hours at a time. "The staff that work back here are more than just the people who wash patients—they're critical care nurses," Sheaffer said. "I wanted to come up with a sim- ple irrigation system that would attach to the existing water source and wash the whole patient, all at once, in certain targeted areas. That would free up the hands of the staff to do other things in critical care." A testament to pragmatic ingenuity and resource- ful thinking, Sheaffer's contraption is strikingly simple: constructed out of PVC piping, it uses custom-made clips to secure to the edge of the table, while a 3-D printed connector hooks onto the unit's water source. Lightweight and completely customiz- able, it uses three filtered shower heads—the standard of care in the unit—to direct the water exactly where it needs to be dispensed. While spearheaded by nurses at UTMB, the mak- erspace will be open to all medical staff and health professions students. Nurses also envision themselves working with patients and caregivers to create per- sonalized devices that work for them. As an outlet for creative medical professionals who problem solve for a living, the MakerHealth Space at UTMB will con- tinue to enable them to take their ideas from concep- tion to reality—and implement them throughout their daily practice. "The process of nursing incorporates both an art and a science to it," Sheaffer said. "There's definitely a science to the job, especially the components that we're taught in school and what we learn about health and assessment, but there's also an art to it that can't be taught. It can only be figured out and experienced. Being able to sit there and figure out what's going to work for that exact patient—and then having the tools and resources at MakerHealth to bring it into reality—is a great way to leverage both sides of the profession." What's unique about the MakerHealth Space at UTMB is putting those tools in the context of a health care system that's providing basic care. — ANNA YOUNG Co-Founder of MakerNurse