The Many Faces of Innovation: One Nurse’s Perspective

Clinical editor, Â

Innovation is a word used almost excessively in our society where technology permeates every aspect of our lives. Nowhere is that this more evident than in the sector of health care, which has benefited from recent discoveries for hundreds of years. Medical innovations akin to novel drug therapies which have eliminated disease, recent device technologies that stretch life, electronic health record systems that improve communication, and advances in processes, service delivery, and education which have improved the general quality of patient care. During my 25-year nursing profession, I actually have had the privilege of working with and experiencing many inventions.

Starting within the Cardiac and Thoracic Intensive Care Unit (CT-SICU), I used to be immediately drawn to a difficult environment where many technological advances were used every day. Each open-heart surgery patient typically got here to us from the operating room intubated, together with intravenous catheters, a pulmonary artery (PA) catheter, a number of mediastinal tubes, pacing leads with or without an external pacemaker, and a Foley catheter. The immediate postoperative period was a fragile balancing act, requiring careful titration of vasoactive medications and administration of precise amounts of fluid to permit the center to pump without disrupting the fragile coronary grafts. Additional devices were used for patients who experienced complications. We steadily encountered using nitric oxide, intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation, left ventricular assist devices, biventricular assist devices, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and continuous hemofiltration and dialysis. Being surrounded by cutting-edge technology was overwhelming at times, and I often felt like a technician managing machines, eager to keep each fragile patient alive. It wasn’t boring in any respect, and I’ve grown tremendously as a clinician over time.

During my graduate studies, I had the chance to take part in a team hired to implement a brand new electronic medical records (EMR) system throughout a university hospital. For most of us working on the bedside, this modification in process appeared like just an added bureaucratic burden to our routine. At the time, I had no idea how necessary this technology was and the way EMRs would shape healthcare today. The Task Team included nurses from various medical specialties. We assisted healthcare providers with entering patient orders and trained every worker to accurately document medications administered and each procedure performed. We conducted a pilot program within the intensive care unit that repeatedly recorded vital signs. We added inputs regarding physical assessment, vasoactive drug dose adjustments, and changes in ventilator settings. We conducted audits, collected physician feedback, and played a very important role in providing flow and design information to the data technology department. The recent system would transform communication between the multidisciplinary team and turn into a driver for data collection, reimbursement, patient safety and quality improvement.

After graduating, I believed I’d pursue a profession in implementing EMR systems. The experience proved extremely rewarding, and the sector was expanding rapidly. However, one other probability appeared. Instead, I’d find yourself on the earth of pharmaceutical research, working on early phase II clinical trials of a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. In terms of innovation, this vaccine could be the primary to forestall HPV infection, which is liable for cervical, vaginal and several other other cancers. Again, I used to be one among several clinical nurses on the team liable for coordinating the study and ensuring data integrity. The path a brand new therapeutic takes to product approval might be rigorous and long; nevertheless, the last word impact on public health is profound.

A brand new stage in my life took me west, where I took the riskiest step in my profession, or at the least that is what I believed on the time. Falling in love with the world of advanced technology, I interviewed a start-up company whose goal was to bring simulation technology to the forefront of drugs. Based on the principles of tactile, or “touch” feedback, the corporate has developed simulations based on intravascular procedures akin to coronary angiography, angioplasty and stenting. Working with talented computer engineers, the clinical team developed complex simulations for quite a lot of medical devices. To expand our reach beyond the cardiac catheterization lab, we created simulations specializing in quality improvement initiatives akin to sepsis, stroke, heart failure, and ventilator-associated pneumonia, to call a couple of. Each simulated scenario began with the patient’s history, diagnostic tests, and relevant laboratory results. Your doctor will use this information to develop a management or treatment strategy. What followed was a totally immersive experience requiring the doctor to walk through a scenario, perform a procedure, monitor vital signs, administer medications and manage the patient’s condition. The patient simulator has been pre-programmed to reply appropriately to every motion and treatment selection. A summary was conducted during which individual and team results were assessed.

Simulation training is an revolutionary methodology that has evolved over the past 20 years to supply practitioners with the chance to learn methods to use recent devices, manage complex patient conditions, and experience rare complications in a protected, risk-free environment. It also promotes collaboration and improves communication between medical teams. The National League of Nursing (2015) recommends simulation as a teaching method to arrange nurses for the career and supports a study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing that found that high-quality simulation experiences can replace as much as 50% of traditional clinical hours within the curriculum pre-licensure nursing (Alexander et al., 2015).

I hadn’t given much thought to innovation in my profession until I used to be asked to jot down about it during National Nurses Week. I spotted that innovation was woven into several chapters of my life and profession as a nurse. Conversely, nurses have played an integral role in every area of ​​healthcare innovation, not limited to those discussed here. Nurses have a novel skill set that enables them to quickly adapt to novel therapeutic approaches, translate clinical information into technology requirements, work in quite a lot of environments including research, and create technologically advanced learning platforms that may transform the way in which future generations learn. Nurses have a novel opportunity to influence change and take leadership positions to bridge the gap between technology and clinical practice. As professionals, we’re reminded that we’ve got a responsibility to positively lead the impact of innovation to enhance the security and quality of patient care.

Bibliography
Alexander, M., Durham, C. F., Hooper, J. I., Jeffries, P. R., Goldman, N., Kardong-Edgren, S… Tillman, C. (2015). NCSBN Simulation Guidelines for Prelicensure Nursing Programs. . 6 section 3, 39-42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(15)30783-3

National Nursing League (2015). NLN Vision: A vision for teaching through simulation. Downloaded from http://www.nln.org/docs/default-source/about/nln-vision-series-(position-statements)/vision-statement-a-vision-for-teaching-with-simulation.pdf?sfvrsn= 2