ANA 2020 Innovation Award Team Winner: Joey Ferry and Taofiki Gafar-Schaner

When Joey Ferry took notice of a smartwatch on Taofki Gadar-Schaner’s wrist during their shift at a Bay-area hospital, what he thought would be a 10-minute conversation turned into a 12-hour meeting of the minds. They bonded about technology and where hospitals were lagging behind. When their shift was over, Gafar-Schaner told his new friend he wanted to show him a product he had created.

“When you are working on something, you arrive at an inflection point where there’s a choice you have to make,” Gafar-Schaner said. “For me, that was when I brought Joey into the fold on this product I had been working on for six months, and he said, ‘this is OK, but it could be better.’ I had to put my ego aside and listen to his feedback because if I didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking to you today.”

Together, Gafar-Schaner and Ferry perfected SafeSeizure, compact self-inflating seizure pads with a universal design that fit all bed types. The product earned the pair an ANA Innovation in 2020.

“I started my career working in an underserved area at a level-1 traume center,” Gafar-Schaner recalled. “We never had seizure pads, only blankets and tape.  When I joined one of the top-ranking hospitals in the bay area, I was surprised to be sent to the linen closet again.”

Energized by their rapport, the Ferry and Gafar-Schaner wasted no time. Shortly after meeting, the pair began iterating on the design, sourcing materials, evaluating products on the market, and identifying key features. They landed on what would be a nearly final product in less than 24 hours.

Unlike other products on the market, SafeSeizure is slim, safe, and compact, making storing the unit accessible. It quickly self-inflates and secures to the bedrail easily and is a universal design to be used with any patient bed. As a single-patient use product, the product is set-it-and-forget-it, following patients throughout their care.

“Nurses aren’t in the job of managing logistics, we’re in the job of patient care. When you have reusable products that are hard to find and store, it requires nurses to be the logistical person,” Gafar-Schaner said. “That’s way too many things to hold in a nurse’s head when they need to remember to give Agnes her meds at 9 AM. This product stays with Agnes the whole time she’s in the hospital, making it easy.”

SafeSeizure also saves health systems money. The common solution used across the country employing blankets and tape to ensure patient safety is in fact a very expensive system. Gafar-Schaner and Ferry launched a pilot program to determine the cost analysis for using SafeSeizure at their health system evaluating linen cost. The study showed that hospitals could spend upward of $100 per patient with a five-day length of stay when using linen. Employing SafeSeizure’s product, on the other hand, has yielded more than $3.5 million in savings to date across the 80+ hospitals in which it’s used. The value of the product has led acclaimed health systems such as Cleveland Clinic to rollout SafeSeizure nationwide.

Beyond cost savings, the team is proud of the product’s simplicity within a marketplace rapid technological advancement.

“We assume innovation has to be high-tech and do all of these whizz-bang things,” Gafar-Schaner said. “The truth of it is: nursing existed before technology and it will continue to exist. The simplicity of nursing is sometimes the beauty of it. I love that our product is not just low-tech… it’s no tech. It just works.”

“We’ve been welcomed with open arms and even celebrated by nurses around the globe,” Ferry added. “Identifying a common workaround and creating a real solution resonates with nurses.”

Since winning their Innovation Award, Ferry and Gafar-Schaner have been iterating on their design and using the funding to move their work forward. They are currently working to source material from 100% plastic to improve our overall environmental footprint. The innovation award funding came at a critical time for SafeSeizure, as the team needed to secure more inventory and move from our garages to a full-service warehouse. This allowed them to expand without the fear of running out of supply.

Due to the success of the product, Ferry and Gafar-Schaner have been able to step away from their nursing jobs and focus on SafeSeizure and their families full-time. They now have resources to support the nursing community by offering time and experiences to other nurse innovators. This year, for example, the team is sending two nurses to the 2023 ANCC Magnet Conference in Chicago.

One of the biggest pieces of advice Ferry and Gafar-Schaner would give to nurse innovators is to practice financial wellness and know when to lean on your support systems.

“There have been opportunities we’ve received not only because we were lucky, but because we were financially stable,” Ferry said. “Coming up with a large amount of infusion capital without investment was not easy. We’ve been able to leave our full-time jobs as nurses to pursue SafeSeizure full-time because we individually established out own safety nets.”

Gafar-Schaner echoes Ferry’s sentiment.

“While you’re on your business journey, as you teach yourself about sales cycles, also teach yourself about loving yourself,” he said. “Teach yourself about finding a support system. There’s a dual role about business and getting yourself in order.”