Boursiquot Accu-Catheter

Lankenau Institute for Medical Research Inventor: Tanara Boursiquot, RN, MSN, AGCNS-BC, Advanced Nurse Clinician, Main Line Health

Read the LIMR Publication

Accu-Catheter Kit:  A Cost-Saving Device for Reliable Foley Catheter Insertion in Females, Boursiquot T, Prendergast GC, Karlovich K. LIMR Publication.

Unmet need

Insertion of the Foley and other female straight catheters, frequently performed in non-hospital settings, presents multiple risks and challenges for the patient and the nurse/caregiver. Required to treat cases of urinary retention and incontinence, post-surgery, and during end-of-life care, a catheter is a flexible tube that a clinician passes through the urethra and into the bladder to drain urine. The Foley is the most common type of indwelling urinary catheter.

The female labia and surrounding tissues represent a dark, moist environment, ripe with bacteria. Labia are different sizes but can be swollen and even rigid depending on the individual’s clinical picture. The female urethra and vagina are not equally situated and may not be clearly and easily identified. Further, patients suffering from obesity, arthritis, immobility, and weakness complicate successful catheter insertion.

There are additional factors external to the female anatomy that complicate successful, sterile insertion. In the home care setting, caregivers are confronted with multiple hindering factors: a patient may sleep in a recliner chair, there may be poor lighting, there may be a lack of available assistance from another person, or a patient may be lying on a regular single, queen-, or king-sized bed without mobility features. Any of these elements pose a real risk of causing the caregiver to break the sterile technique, increasing the risk of urinary tract infection. Finally, the provision of catheter supplies is insurance-driven. Some insurance companies allow only the number of supplies necessary for the intervention, i.e., if the doctor orders the catheter to be changed once a month, the insurer may only approve one catheter. As a second catheter is not covered by insurance, the caregiver, having erred in the initial placement, frequently attempts a second insertion with the same device, significantly increasing the chance of bacterial infection and Catheter Acquired Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI). The same is true of patients required to perform self-catheterization.

Opportunity

An experienced home health care nurse and now Advance Nurse Clinician, Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) inventor Tanara Boursiquot has developed a novel device, inexpensive to manufacture, that can be used to retract and retain labia of female genitalia during catheter insertion.

The Boursiquot device may be used as a single-use/new-use item for a single procedure for a single patient and then discarded.

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections are among the most common types of healthcare-associated infections. The total annual cost in the US of CAUTI is $450M annually,(1) and in the home care setting, Sorbye et al. reported that as many as 5.4% of patients use an indwelling urinary catheter and Getliffe and Newton identified that 8.0% of home care patients developed CAUTIs.(2) The development of CAUTI also is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and significantly increased healthcare expense.(3)

As a result of the physical and financial costs of CAUTI, there is a need for a product that can be used to assist the caregiver in performing a urinary catheterization process on females while maintaining sterile technique during the catheterization process. The Boursiquot device does just that.

Unique attributes

  • Device can be used simultaneously to retract and retain the labia during the urinary catheterization process, to assist the nurse in visualizing the female anatomy, and to assist the nurse in differentiating the urethra from the vagina to properly identify the urethra for catheter insertion.
  • Device effectively performs the work of the clinician’s non-dominant hand, freeing both of the clinician’s hands for use in employing a sterile technique.
  • Can be kitted with disposable gloves, pre-moistened towelette, and lubricant to provide full range of clinical needs in one package.

Applications

The Boursiquot Catheter Placement Device assists a nurse or other caregiver in performing a urinary catheterization process on females and maintaining sterile technique during the catheterization process.

It also may be used in other medical contexts for other medical procedures, including self-catheterization, and in non-medical contexts for other purposes, such as female sexual health.

Stage of development

Functional prototype manufactured, ready to begin design trials.

Intellectual property

Provisional Patent application filed April 2024.

Contacts

Institutional contact: George C. Prendergast, PhD, LIMR President and CEO, 484.476.8475, prendergast@limr.org

L2C Partners contact: Merle Gilmore, 610.662.0940, gilmore@l2cpartners.com; Alexander Toglia, MS, 610.937.1067, toglia@l2cpartners.com

References

  1. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ.gov.
  2. Scanlon MK, Deluca G, Bono-Snell B. Reducing catheter-associated urinary tract infections in home care: a performance improvement project. Home Healthc Nurse. 2012 Jul-Aug;30(7):408-17; quiz 418-9. doi: 10.1097/NHH.0b013e318252c7a9
  3. CDC, 2011.