As a child growing up in Bellevue, Joelle Tudor had many interests including sports, art, painting, and reading. She also loved tinkering with things to better understand how they worked, including the medical devices her dad would bring home from his work. As she explains, “My dad is in medicine, so I shadowed him thinking I wanted to be a doctor of some sort.” But over time she realized it was the tools and devices that most interested her, and so she decided to enroll in the University of Washington’s mechanical engineering program so she could build the medical devices that would improve the lives of patients and make the lives of their medical providers easier.

“From my mechanical engineering capstone they had a track called the Engineering Innovation in Health program (EIH),” she explains. “This program brings together mechanical engineers, engineers from other programs, and graduate students and pairs them with clinicians from the greater Seattle area who pitch problems they are seeing in their own practices.” For Joelle’s senior capstone project, she and her team were paired with Dr. Tova Weiss, a Urology Resident at UW Medicine. Dr. Weiss was seeing patients accidentally ripping out their urinary catheters, causing severe trauma to themselves in the process. So, Joelle’s team got to work figuring out how to solve the problem.

“We first had to understand what is involved in building medical devices including the regulatory aspects, reimbursement, and purchasing processes. The next term we focused on R&D and were able to create a prototype and sketch out ideas of how we could make it even better,” says Joelle. By the end of the school year, they had a fully functional 3D-printed prototype and were encouraged to enter into business competitions at UW to see if their invention could become an actual product. They won second place in both the Health Innovation Challenge and the Dempsey Startup Competition—Foster School of Business, and have gone on to compete in and win several other competitions (which you can find on her LinkedIn page by scanning the QR code below). Through success at competitions and securing grant funding, she and her team were able to transform their innovative idea into something more: CathConnect.

As Joelle explains, “CathConnect is a breakaway device that can be installed into a urinary catheter at a custom location so it can be adapted to both male and female patients. When a delirious or highly mobile patient unknowingly pulls on the catheter tubing, the device disconnects it from the catheter, so it doesn’t get pulled out.”  Aside from saving the patient from severe infection and/or damage to the urethra or prostate, the device also gives nurses and doctors peace of mind. “Currently, nurses need to restrain patients that are confused and who may pull out their medical equipment, or sit with them constantly,” says Joelle. “With nursing shortages, it just isn’t feasible to be taking nurses off their shifts to do this.”

Today, Joelle serves as CathConnect’s CEO with Dr. Weiss as Chief Medical Officer; Manny Pacheco as Head of Product Development; Michael Malone as Head of Operations; and Liam Sullivan as Head of Strategy. Together they appeared in Seattle Forbes ‘30 under 30’.

“Right now we are finalizing the design for manufacture in our pre-seed round,” says Joelle. “We have a device that is low cost and accessible for all patients, but in the future, we want to apply all the bells and whistles and also apply the technology to other medical tubing.” They are currently getting ready to go through the FDA’s approval process, but because the device is low-risk and non-invasive, don’t expect it to take too long. While Joelle is working full-time on this endeavor, her teammates are contributing via moonlighting outside their other jobs.

They have been at it for about a year now, having graduated in June 2022, and are excited to build even more amazing products once this one goes to market. Joelle wants to thank her two sisters and wonderful parents for supporting her, cheering her on, and encouraging her to relax and take breaks from work when needed. “I always love visiting home, and my dad is already pestering me with ideas for future devices,” she says with a laugh. When she isn’t working, she enjoys hiking, biking, or doing anything outdoors. As she says, “The Seattle area offers the perfect balance between outdoor activities and city life!”

To learn more about Joelle, her team, and their device, go to: cathconnect.com