Think in another way about innovation in nursing

Executive Director of Continuing Education
Wolters Kluwer – Health science, research and practice

My colleague Denise Felsenstein tested an intervention in her nurse practitioner residency program that significantly improved access to look after lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in a community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What was this innovation? This was not a brand new electronic medical records system. It wasn’t a mobile app and it actually wasn’t about virtual reality or artificial intelligence! It was an indication with a picture of a rainbow that simply read, “All are welcome.” This sign was placed outside the clinic and within the lobby to make patients feel comfortable searching for health care on the clinic.

Like Denise, many nurses solve problems and use observations and research to often test latest interventions which may be considered innovations, but we may overlook the worth of those interventions and never share them with the broader medical community. Consider what number of suggestions you gave latest nurses during orientation that saved time or saved a life. Why can we so rarely consider our contributions as innovations? Perhaps it’s because we often consider technologies corresponding to robots, mobile applications and medical devices to be innovations. Well, that is just not the case; that is why I challenge nurses to think in another way about innovation.

Another strategy to take into consideration innovation is to make use of an existing tool or device for a brand new purpose. An example of that is the approval of older drugs for brand new indications. Similarly, nurses may even see a further profit to an existing device that we will use to support nursing care, corresponding to using a patient’s cellphone to record their teaching. There may additionally be great ideas that nurses can use from one other industry to unravel an issue in healthcare. An example of that is how skilled development nurses have borrowed from the entertainment and gaming industries to advertise learning in a more engaging format. After receiving negative feedback about boring lectures in a nurse residency program, program organizers implemented escape rooms to strengthen learning and test nurse problem-solving skills. (Adams, Burger, Crawford et al., 2018).

The next time you improvise to unravel a patient problem, document it in the shape of a poster presentation or submit it to a journal. You might want to conduct research to make clear the science and determine whether your intervention is original. Although chances are you’ll not think your idea may have a big impact, there’s a great likelihood that your contribution could also be just the answer other nurses are in search of.

Bibliography
Adams, V., Burger, S., Crawford, K. et al. (2018). Can you escape? Creating an escape room to facilitate lively learning. 34, E1-E5. doi:10.1097/NND.0000000000000433

Felsenstein, D. (2018). Increasing the cultural competence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals within the Midwestern primary care clinic setting. 34, 142-150. doi:10.1097/NND.0000000000000450