When we first commercially launched the QuickChange, we initially focused on professional settings - acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospices - in order to get feedback on best practices and get buy in from providers and professional caregivers. The goal though was always to get to the consumer market. Our wraps proved so helpful to individuals and their families that the world's largest retailer took notice and decided to bring them to stores shelves across the country.
By partnering with Walmart, we are able to expand our distribution and accessibility to even more individuals and families that would like an alternative to adult briefs/diapers and catheters.
You can find a link to our Walmart locations here. STORE LOCATOR
Our Story
The idea for the QuickChange® Incontinence Wrap was inspired by the needs of family caregivers taking care of their bedridden husbands and fathers. Quite often, a relatively smaller caregiver struggled to lift and turn an elderly male family member in order to change his diaper or brief. Even for hospital staff, turning over a patient can come with many risks.
Briefs, by design, wrap around the waist and legs, meaning that bed or chair-bound men will be laying on top of them with their full weight when they need to be changed.
Necessity is the father of invention. Creative caregivers inspired the founders of UI Medical to create the QuickChange® Incontinence Wrap. The original prototype was a lily pad-shaped design that wrapped around the penis to catch urine; this was to avoid the need to turn the elderly male over to change his diaper.
Once the design was finalized, the the QuickChange® Incontinence Wrap was internationally patented and commercialized. That is how UI Medical came to be.
The QuickChange® Incontinence Wrap has been making a considerable difference by bringing dignity to the wearer while simultaneously keeping him comfortable. "The absorbable diaper was such an invention in the 1960s that for decades, no one else took a crack at how we can make this better. This is the first product that allows nursing aides to change a man's diaper pad without moving him," according to one senior executive of UI Medical in an interview with a Los Angeles business publication
How It Works
QuickChange Wraps (QCW) were designed for male uses who are semi or non-ambulatory and limited to beds or wheelchairs for large parts of their day. The QCW wraps around the penis and prevents urine from coming into contact with the skin, unlike with the design of diaper/briefs where uring makes direct contact with the skin and the brief acts as a containment device. The wrap is easy to change, typically only requiring one person, and often the individuals being treated don't need to be woken up for the wrap to be changed.
The reason it's named QuickChange is because it only takes 60 seconds to change the user, regardless of his size, anatomy, or weight. There is no lofting required, unlike traditional diapers and briefs that wrap around the waist and legs. QuickChange wraps are applied "from the top-down" and only around the penis. The wraps can be combined with diapers or briefs, and this can be beneficial if the user has bowel incontinence. By using both, it makes it possible only to change the wrap if the user has urinated.
QuickChange wraps collect urine before it comes into contact with the skin, which significantly reduces the risk of any skin health issues. With diapers and briefs, urine runs between the thighs and pools under the buttocks before being absorbed by the brief. The pooling of urine can cause the skin to break down and lead to painful rashes and sores. The wraps have also been shown to prevent pressure injuries related to incontinence-associated dermatitis (IAD). A person urinates 1000cc's of urine on an average day, and the QuickChange wrap holds 500cc's.
Nursing Homes and Hospitals
The QCW made a significant difference when nursing homes adopted it, and this innovation didn't only help keep costs down but also eased the strain on caregivers. Among the leading causes of workers comp in healthcare are back injuries caused by lifting and turning patients to change their diapers. Soon after being adopted by nursing homes, UI Medical discovered that the QuickChange could eliminate the need for catheters in some male patients. Aside from the obvious discomfort of catheters, they can also increase the risk of infection, which the QuickChange makes it possible to avoid.
Not long after nursing homes adopted the QuickChange, hospitals began to stock the wrap, and now hospitals account for 80% of the wraps sales. A few hundred hospitals already carry the QuickChange. Among the hospitals that have adopted the wrap are Cedars Sinai Medical Center, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, and several Kaisers are among the hospitals on the list. The wrap is used in several different units, including the ER, ICU, and Trauma.
At Home Caregivers
Personal caregivers have been using QuickChange to help keep dads, brothers, and sons at home. Often, family members find themselves the primary caregiver for their loved ones, which can cause caregiver fatigue. QuickChange wraps help alleviate caregiver's concern by making it possible for a single person to care for the user, by protecting the user's skin, and even lowering laundry costs by reducing urine-related linen changes by up to 30%.
With the pandemic, many families have brought their loved ones home from nursing homes to care for them.
We've received great feedback from at-home caregivers about their experience with the QCW. Caregivers have remarked on the ease of use, its comfort, how its improved sleep quality by reducing the need to wake up the user, and how it's kept their loved ones dry. There's no need for urinary incontinence to be another concern with so much already on everyone's mind.
"QuickChange is a superior product. As a caregiver, I search for items that are easy to use. QuickChange is exceptional. I highly recommend this product for its ease of use, convenience, and value," remarked David W.
