Arbutus Medical is rapidly becoming the industry’s go-to partner for skeletal traction. The company’s (obsessive) focus on streamlining the skeletal traction workflow for medical professionals and patients alike has resulted in the creation of several innovative solutions to long-neglected problems. Most recently, QuikLine™- a device that eliminates the need for specialized traction bed setups, and now included in TrakPak® – has been introduced to some of the continent’s leading trauma hospitals.
QuikLine™ consists of the company’s QuikBow® pin tensioner, carabiners, rope and water bag, plus one game-changing feature: when weights are attached to QuikLine™, a levering mechanism “magically” elevates the bow off of the patient’s tibia, preventing skin breakdown and eliminating the need for traction frames. The beauty of the product is in its sheer simplicity, which has solved an impactful, hidden problem.
QuikLine™ delivers significant efficiency gains compared to the conventional method for hanging traction weights. Traditionally, hospitals would attach a bow to the tibia, which is pulled upward through a pulley system with a weight hung off the end. “The reason they have this pulley system here – which attaches on the end of the bed – is so that it pulls in an upward direction. In that way, this bow doesn’t rest on the tibia, avoiding pressure ulcers,” explained Geoff Borgmann, Sr Director of Sales at Arbutus Medical.
The Problem
The main problem that hospitals face is the complexity of this set up; a very specific type of bed is required to support the pulley system and sometimes these beds are not available.
Also, each component that comprises the frame has to be gathered before healthcare providers can put a patient into traction, and these components are frequently lost. Patient transfers require care providers to disassemble and reassemble the frame each time. This leads to inefficiency, delays, and backlogs in the ER, proving to be a pain point for hospitals and patients alike.
Michael Cancilla, co-founder and Sr. Director of Product at Arbutus Medical explained that the first question the team had to answer was whether or not the problem was big enough. “The biggest question for me was, ‘Will a hospital change their workflow to solve this problem?’ and I quickly found that they would!”
CEO and co-founder of Arbutus Medical Lawrence Buchan agrees that there had been a lot of hidden frustration in the hospitals around this. “Slowly, we started to realize that there’s actually a significant hidden problem here in the hospital – the number of people involved in the procurement of these frames, and how often they would have to go searching for traction bed frames”, he explained.
To add to the problems that were already being faced, a key vendor of these bed frames – Zimmer – was discontinuing the line, which would have made traction impossible without the bed frames. Seeing this looming gap in care, Arbutus Medical started thinking of alternatives to offer to customers.
The Introduction of QuikLine
Within the matter of months, the team at Arbutus Medical was able to launch QuikLine as an addition to TrakPak®, a short timeline to solve a problem that has been around for more than a hundred years (since before the First World War).
The conventional but inefficient approach to traction, with specialized beds and cumbersome frame setups, has been so long-standing that healthcare providers initially found it difficult to imagine another way – but Arbutus Medical is now rapidly changing the status quo.
“Naturally, we receive a lot of questions, but those questions quickly turn to jaw-dropping reactions after seeing the product demonstration. Multiple customers have called this a ‘game changer’,” said Borgmann. “The simplicity and outright usefulness of QuikLine catches people off guard – traction frames and pulleys are so ingrained that it’s difficult to see a better way.”
Impact of Using Quikline
QuikLine™ works on any bed, including stretchers making it not only easy to use, but also easily accessible to any patient. This frees up a lot of time for nurses and surgeons, prevents long wait times for the procedure, and streamlines difficult bed transfers for patients.
It has also impacted other departments in the hospital. It uniquely impacts bed control, which is in charge of moving and finding beds. Each time a surgeon is required to put the pin in the patient, they would call bed control, who would have to find a bed that works. This means that patients are often in pain for hours, until an appropriate bed is sourced.
Then comes the next problem of transferring the patient to this bed. This is a struggle for the nurses and patients alike, given that the patient has a broken leg or pelvis and possibly other injuries too. It also helps in transferring patients from bed to bed after the traction has been applied. Previously, it would require the dismantling and setting up of the pulley system, but now the patient can simply be carried from one bed to the other.
Borgmann recalls a time when he was introducing QuikLine at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where a nurse was extremely happy with the reduced steps in using this, since the pulley system caused a lot of angst amongst the nurses. “I came across one nurse who had all this traction equipment and she was practising just in case a traction patient came in. So when I approached her she was over the moon that she would not have to deal with this anymore.”
All told, QuikLine™ is yet another example of how Arbutus Medical approaches its role as a problem-solving partner to hospitals and healthcare professionals who are deeply motivated to change the status quo.
As of August 2024, QuikLine™ is now being used by 23 facilities across the US and the company expects the product to become the standard of care in short order.
The beauty of this lies in the sheer simplicity of a product which has to exist in a very complex environment. It has eliminated steps in the workflow, winning back time for nurses and doctors. The company firmly believes that it will lead to improved patient care.
QuikLine™ is a part of Arbutus Medical’s TrakPak® kit, and you can learn more about these products here. If you are interested in learning more about QuikLine™ or any of our other products, please contact us.
