Middletown Nurse Wins J&J Award For Her COVID-Inspired Invention

LONG BRANCH, NJ — A Middletown woman who works as a pediatric nurse at Monmouth Medical Center was one of only two nurses in North America to win a Johnson & Johnson award for innovations in how to care for coronavirus patients.

For the past six years, Johnson & Johnson has held its Nurses Innovate QuickFire Challenge. But in 2020, it adapted the focus to specifically improve care for patients with COVID-19.

Kathleen Malouf, of Middletown, works at the Unterberg Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center. Malouf works as what's called a "pediatric medical stay" nurse at the Long Branch children's hospital, meaning she works with kids who come to the hospital for day treatments, such as to receive chemotherapy infusions for cancer.

So, to say the least, her job is already pretty challenging.

When coronavirus hit last spring, she was reassigned to work with some of the hospital's most critical patients, those in the COVID-19 ICU. That meant she had to don several layers of protective PPE with every shift.

“Back in April, I was redeployed to be a nurse in our new COVID intensive care unit,” she recalled, in a press release. “I was accustomed to using my scrub pockets to hold everything I would need when caring for my pediatric patients, but when I shifted to caring for COVID patients and wearing layers of PPE, my pockets became inaccessible. I found myself unable to hold all the supplies I needed when visiting a patient’s room."

She was simply unable to access her pockets due to the layers of protective gear.

Malouf said she noticed she was not alone: She and other nurses were either forgetting supplies or dropping them on the floor, and thus having to throw them out. To make matters worse, this all happened at a time when hospital workers were desperately trying to preserve PPE.

“I realized what we needed was a pocket for our isolation gowns — almost like a fanny pack —that could help store supplies, stick on and come off easily with our isolation gowns, and wouldn’t interfere with our PPE — that led me to create the IsoPouch, which is short for Isolation Pouch,” she explained.

The IsoPouch supports a nurse's natural workflow in caring for COVID patients, enabling nurses to use the pouch to gather the supplies they will need before entering a patient's room, said the hospital. It allows them to don their PPE, and stick the pouch to the gown. When finished, nurses can just remove the pouch with the gown.

“It’s a simple solution, but it has the potential to help nurses and other front-line health workers provide more sanitary and efficient care, especially in high-stress environments like ICUs,” said Malouf.

The Johnson & Johnson award is not just a plaque: It also comes with an undisclosed amount of funding to help Malouf further develop her prototypes of the IsoPouch. Johnson & Johnson has said awardees can receive up to $100,000. The other nurse who won is Jennifer Stinson, from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, who invented Pain Rehabilitation Virtual Reality. Working with Stanford University, that software aims to develop virtual reality as an at-home rehabilitation treatment for adolescents with chronic pain.

Malouf said she is eager to begin manufacturing, explore different sizes and materials and plans to pursue a patent. She said the IsoPouch is not just limited to healthcare: Basically, any industry that uses isolation gowns can benefit from the IsoPouch.

“I want to focus on getting this product to those on the front lines of this health crisis first," said Malouf. "But I also know there are opportunities to expand this to other industries that use isolation gowns, such as nuclear, chemical, aerospace and even the food industry."

Her advice to others? Don't be afraid to pitch an idea — any idea — that you think can improve the world.

"For the longest time, I’ve been keeping a list on my phone of ideas that could help improve patient care or our daily workflow ... Nurses are not conditioned to be thought of as innovators, but nurses are in the trenches of healthcare every day, so our insights are vital,” she said. “I would encourage nurses with great ideas to take a leap of faith and come forward with your ideas and products, because just by believing in yourself, you can change healthcare. It’s within your power.”

Diann Johnston, the regional chief nursing officer at Monmouth Medical, said it is nurses like Malouf that helped the hospital receive magnet designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center last January.

"Among the criteria for our magnet recognition is that our nurses must be recognized for their contributions to the hospital,” she said. “This new innovation by Kathleen is an incredible example of how our nurses continue to shine.”

Learn more about the Johnson & Johnson Nurses Innovate QuickFire Challenge in COVID-19 Patient Care Awardees, and see more photos of the two winners, Malouf and the Toronto nurse: https://nursing.jnj.com/nursin...

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