Women who have cesarean delivery under neuraxial anesthesia often bring a smartphone into the OR to take pictures of this special moment in their lives. However, due to positioning, nausea and vomiting, and other elements unique to the OR, patients may not be able to hold their phones during the case, they might drop their phones, and oftentimes they ask the anesthesia provider to place the phone somewhere on the anesthesia cart or machine. Given the ubiquity of smartphones, it is important that modern ORs entail design elements to facilitate convenient use of these devices to help enhance the patient experience.
At Tufts Medical Center, we have designed and printed a 3D phone holder (Figure 1), which is conveniently attached to an I.V. pole and easily accessible to the patient and her support person. The phone holder was designed using CAD software (Autodesk Fusion 360, San Francisco) and printed on a fused deposition modeling 3D printer (Prusa Research i3 MKs+, Prague, Czech Republic) in PETG filament. Figure 2 shows the CAD schematic used for printing.
Figure 1: 3D-printed phone holder.
Figure 2: CAD schematic used for 3D printing.
Anecdotally, the phone holder has been well received. Patients and their support persons intuitively place their phones in the holder, often without prompting. When the baby is born, the patients can easily take a picture. At the same time, if the woman is interested in skin-to-skin in the OR, she can hold her baby without needing to also worry about dropping her phone. The phone holder offers the patient a certain measure of control over the environment (Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;5:CD003519). The standardized location in the OR also makes it easier to find the phone when needed.
Although phone holders can easily be purchased online, 3D-printed holders have several advantages. 3D-printed objects are clean, nontoxic, and can be fabricated into myriad shapes. Very importantly, 3D-printed objects are inexpensive, often costing only pennies when compared to commercially purchased items (asamonitor.pub/41FAWCl; PeerJ 2016;4:e2661; AAPS PharmSciTech 2021;22:49).
With 84% of U.S. households owning a smartphone in 2018, these devices have become an integral part of contemporary life and present an opportunity for promoting patient-centered care in the OR. Patients’ satisfaction with their environment is a significant predictor of their overall health care experience – as such, it is important that anesthesiologists pave the way for an improved patient experience in the OR (asamonitor.pub/3J4jxuX; HERD 2008;1:61-125). 3D-printing objects for use in obstetric anesthesia contributes to the modern wave of innovative quality improvement strategies and is a key strategy for improving the patient experience.