About 15 years ago when I started working as an ICU nurse, I realized something was missing at the bedside. As nurses, we deal with numerous tubing and cables and it can be frustrating to juggle them all during your shift. Back then we got creative by using small medicine cups and tape. We would flip the medicine cups upside down and tape them to the hospital bed rail to form a wedge for the tubing and cables. While that seemed to solve the problem, it was temporary. The tubing and cables would escape the wedge during patient care activities. Sometimes they would get stuck under the bed rails and some would get dislodged. It was surprising to me that there was nothing in the market to solve this annoying and potentially dangerous problem. I thought of an idea back then but didn’t really pursue it.

Fast forward 6-7 years later, I walk into a patient’s room, this time as a medical student and I see tubing and cables held in place by a wedge created with a blood collection tube and rubber band. I was in disbelief! I couldn’t believe makeshift contraptions were still being used for this problem. I remember going home to my husband that day and saying to him, “We need to do something!” And that is how we re-awakened my idea and TubeAid was born. TubeAid is a simple device that provides a secure attachment for tubing and cables at the patient’s bedside while allowing some degree of flexibility and movement.

During my residency training as a pediatrician, I saw different makeshift methods at the bedside for keeping tubing and cables in place, so we know this is still a problem. TubeAid provides a solution to this problem.