Venflon fixation

The last 8 weeks Nanna Åkjær Sørensen and I have been looking for a smart and safe way of fastening an IV/venflon to the hand or arm of a patient. The project is part of a course in Welfare design, in collaboration with the hospital in Kolding.

On our first visit to the hospital, some nurses introduced us to problems related to the fastening of a venflon to dementia patients. To make the venflon stay in place, they use a lot of bandage, which makes it difficult to spot beginning infections. To find out if there were other problems related to venflon fixation, we made a questionnaire for nurses and younger patients.

The result showed us that it is a huge problem that the venflon changes position under the skin - or falls out completely. 42 % of the patients also complained that they were afraid that the venflon would fall out. And some even told us that the venflon made it difficult for them to sleep. But to really get the feeling of how it is like to wear a venflon, Nanna and I tried it for ourself, doing a 24 hour test.

Full of new insights we started prototyping. It was very useful to have the opportunity to be able to visit the hospital again to get feedback on our models. I won’t show you the final result yet, because we were adviced to protect our idea, but if you want to see more of the project, visit my blog: ellenrykkelid.com/blog