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Karen Meade, doctoral nursing student and graduate researcher in the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation, was recently awarded approximately $50,000 in funding through The Ohio State University’s Accelerator Awards program to help advance her nurse-led invention, the b3 Buddy, into the next phase of development and commercialization.

Short for “bag below bladder,” the b3 Buddy is designed to improve urinary drainage securement in patients with urinary catheters. By securing urinary drainage bags below the bladder during patient ambulation, the b3 Buddy prevents backward flow, promoting infection prevention and safety. It can also help keep the drainage bag elevated off the floor in very low bed frames, supporting a variety of clinical needs in different settings.

Conceived in 2020, the project began with seed funding and support from Ohio State’s Innovation Studio. Meade collaborated with engineers and an occupational therapist to refine the idea, working with the Center for Manufacturing and Design Excellence (CDME) at Ohio State to produce a functional prototype. Thanks to this interdisciplinary effort, the team was able to conduct an IRB-approved feasibility study on hospitalized patients. The results demonstrated the b3 buddy’s feasibility, usability and acceptability in real-world clinical settings.

With Accelerator Award funding, Meade and her team will now begin critical pre-commercialization steps, including conducting a regulatory analysis to determine if FDA approval is required and a freedom-to-operate analysis to assess any potential intellectual property conflicts.