DiversityNursing Blog

Nurses play a crucial role in healthcare innovation. Innovation in Nursing requires a creative approach to develop and implement new technologies, streamline workflows, improve patient care, and enhance overall healthcare outcomes. Nurses are uniquely qualified to contribute to Nursing innovations due to their frontline experience, patient interactions, and in-depth understanding of the healthcare process. Here are some attributes, qualities, and competencies Nurses need to be an innovator.

Clinical Expertise: Nurses have an in-depth understanding of patient needs, treatment plans, and healthcare procedures. This first-hand experience allows you to identify areas of healthcare where innovation may be needed to enhance patient safety and healthcare outcomes. Clinical expertise is the first step of innovation in Nursing.

Patient-Centered Care: The #1 focus of Nurses is to provide patient-centered care. It is often the top motivator of Nurse innovators. Nurses spend a significant amount of time with patients, making them expertly qualified to contribute ideas to personalize care plans, enhance communication, and improve the overall patient experience.

Thinking Outside the Box: All innovation in Nursing is born from thinking outside the box and exploring many possibilities to create a solution. Nurses are natural problem solvers who use creativity and curiosity to continually investigate problems and develop practical solutions that are easy to implement and understand.  

Risk Taking: Although risk taking can often be viewed as a negative term, no Nursing innovation was ever successful without taking a risk. Nurse innovators interweave evidence-based practice with practical solutions to change how we care for our patients and ultimately improve their health outcomes.

Innovation in Nursing starts with a need for change, a desire to help, and an idea that changes the face of healthcare and positively impacts patient care. Here are several fantastic Nurse innovators took their ideas and turned them into reality.  

The Crash Cart: Anita Door, a Registered Nurse, created the first-ever crash cart in 1968 after years of watching Doctors and Nurses run around Nursing units looking for essential equipment in the face of emergencies. She developed the first crash cart prototype in her basement, and now, crash carts are a staple of any healthcare facility and are used worldwide.

Lumify uNight Light: The Lumify uNight Light was developed by Anthony Scaropone-Lambert, a then Nursing student and NICU Nurse, Jennifer Mancillas. While working together, they realized a need for light they could use to light their workspace without disrupting their patients with bright overhead lighting in the middle of the night. This is how the idea for a portable, battery-operated, clip-on light was born. Now, the Lumify uNight Light is a must-have accessory for any Nurse.

Stink Balm Odor Blocker: Created by an Emergency Room Nurse who wanted to find a way to cover foul odors often inconspicuously encountered on the job. The Stink Balm Odor Blocker is a must-have for all Nurses. The Balm comes in a discrete, lip balm-like container and can be quickly and easily applied under the nose so you can enjoy a fresh scent while taking care of your patients. The company is 100% Nurse-owned and operated out of Long Island, New York.

The N95 Mask Preserver: The COVID-19 pandemic inspired Nurse innovators to push the limits and invent practical solutions to everyday problems. Timothy Aurelio, an Emergency Room Nurse who worked during the pandemic, was forced to reuse his N95 mask due to a short supply of PPE. He invented the N95 Mask preserver as a convenient and clean place to store his mask between his shifts. The preserver is made of antimicrobial, medical-grade plastic, allowing Nurses to preserve PPE while keeping themselves and their patients safe.

The Beata Clasp: Nurses who work at the bedside know all too well how easily IV tubing, drains, and other medical lines can get tangled up throughout the shift. Lennor Henning, an experienced bedside Nurse, developed the Beata Clasp, a latex-free appliance to be applied to the bedrail to keep lines organized easily.

The Neo-Slip: The Neo-Slip was developed by a Registered Nurse who realized how tough it was for older people to apply compression stockings to prevent leg blood clots. The Neo-Slip provides a smooth base with a lubricated effect to help slide stockings into place.

Nurses everywhere continue to utilize their knowledge and experience to create practical solutions to solve problems and streamline processes. As healthcare grows and evolves, new innovative opportunities will continuously emerge. If you have an idea, there is no better time to put that idea into motion and change the face of Nursing.

Nurse's innovative ideas are coming to life thanks to pop-up labs through a company called MakerHealth. MakerNurse, powered by MakerHealth, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was launched in September 2013 with the goal of examining Nurse innovation in U.S. hospitals and identifying tools and resources that could help more Nurses bring their ideas to fruition and lead improvements in patient care. Their solutions, informed by this research, are being adopted by institutions across the country. 

Nurses are natural problem solvers and spot any barriers in providing the best health care. So it would be in everyone's best interest to support Nurse's ideas and provide them the tools to create.

MakerHealth Space is situated inside a hospital. It provides Nurses and other health care professionals direct access to robust tools and materials, from 3D printers to Velcro, to create new and better devices that improve the way they care for patients. 

According to the company's website, the MakerHealth Space is stocked with adhesives and fasteners, such as Velcro and zip ties; textiles and electronics, including sensors and microcontrollers; and a range of tools, from pliers and sewing needles to 3D printers and laser cutters. The space is divided into a series of workstations, each equipped to address a specific medical challenge, such as fluid control or assistive technology.

PICU Neonatal Transport Nurse, Brittany Hruska, started researching and creating earmuffs for babies in the neonatal intensive care unit a couple years ago. 

"In the NICU, we have a lot of noise that we can't eliminate between the ventilators and just talking that happens. There's been tons of research on how damaging it is to babies. It's bad for their growth, development. It's bad for their brains," said Hruska.

A MakerHealth pop-up lab was set up at Blank Children’s Hospital and helped her improve her invention. Hruska said, "Before I was hand cutting these. They would take me about an hour to make a set of them. The MakerNurse program had people who helped me learn how to do computer aided design software and we 3D printed molds and they helped me find liquid foam, so now I can make lots of these pretty quickly."

The first MakerHealth Space was at John Sealy Hospital at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Jason Sheaffer, Nurse manager in that burn unit, used PVC piping with 3D printed connectors to make a modular irrigation system to attach to the burn unit tub, creating a shower system that will help Nurses more efficiently and effectively treat burn patients. Dolly McCarley, from that Medical Surgical unit, laser cut acrylic attachments for patient IV poles to keep supplies closer at hand. Debra Flynn, from that Labor and Delivery Unit, fabricated protective sleeves for patient IVs using an impulse sealer, vinyl and string. Dell Roach in Cardiothoracic Surgery designed a template for placing 12-lead EKGs on pediatric patients.

To learn more about MakerHealth and their MakerNurse program, click here.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defines innovation as “a new way of doing things to improve healthcare delivery”. Innovation can happen in your processes, systems, business models, as well as other “new” products or services.

“Nurses are the backbone of the American healthcare system,” says Sarah Colamarino, Vice President, Corporate Equity, Johnson & Johnson. “We know they are compassionate caregivers, but they’re so much more—they’re also driving innovation and pushing healthcare forward."

The reason Nurses are natural innovators is because “Nurses sit at the juncture between the patient and the system. They understand the pain points,’’ says Boston Children's Hospital Nursing Director, Jayne Rogers. “We want to encourage them to identify those issues and bring them forward for solutions.’’

Here are a few terrific Nurses Innovators whose ideas made life better for many.

Jonelle Krier, an OB Nurse in Duluth, MN, noticed parents struggle with air-drying their infant’s umbilical cord. She came up with an idea for an infant body suit with an opening that provides umbilical exposure. The one-piece garments are now used in some hospital nurseries. Krier won a Huggies® Mom Inspired™ grant, which has helped her expand the line to offer additional colors and designs.

Some ideas are simple changes, but make a huge impact in patient care.

Nurses Teri Barton-Salina and her sister Gail Barton-Hay had the idea to color-code IV lines so you'd be able to identify lines in seconds. In hospitals those seconds are valuable.

Neomi Bennett, RN, wanted to help Nurses and patients dealing with deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which occurs when blood clots form in the deep veins, often the legs. Many Doctors require patients to wear compression stockings, which can be difficult to put on because they are very tight. Bennett invented the Neo-Slip, a simple foot covering that allows compression stockings to be slipped on with ease.

OR Nurse, Jill Byrne of the Cleveland Clinic, created a vest to keep surgical staff cool under hot operating room lights. The lightweight vest contains pockets to hold ice packs and is designed to fit under surgical gowns to fight heat stress.

Innovation doesn't mean you have to create something completely new.

A Lippincott article says, "You can use an existing tool or device for a new purpose. An example of this is how older drugs are approved for new indications. Similarly, Nurses may find a secondary benefit of an existing device that we can use to support Nursing care like using a patient’s mobile phone to record patient teaching. There also may be great ideas that Nurses can repurpose from another industry to solve a problem in healthcare. An example of this is how Nursing professional development practitioners borrowed from the entertainment and gaming industry to foster learning in a more engaging format. Having received poor feedback about boring lectures in a Nurse residency program, the organizers of the program implemented escape rooms to reinforce learning and to test problem-solving skills among Nurse residents."

It is imperative to create a culture of innovation where Nurses feel confident in sharing their ideas and receive resources to help further their concepts into actual solutions.

An ANA article said, " In Nursing education, we should be teaching our Nurse leaders how to be change agents and innovators. We should be developing ways to train new Nurses and ensure that they are “innovation competent” when they graduate. As Nurses, we need to be calculated risk takers while keeping patient safety paramount. That way, we raise Nurses who don’t accept the status quo and are always questioning and seeing what’s next."

Healthcare is continually evolving. To become better, we need Nurse innovators to create new ideas, solutions and improvements to existing processes, systems and materials. Please share new innovations that made a difference to you and your patients.

You see problems with the equipment, software, bedding, clothing, etc. you use in your job every day. If you have an idea to make something better, here are a few inspirational stories of Nurses who acted on their ideas to create a better solution to the problems they encountered.

Decades ago, Bessie Blount Griffin was a a volunteer Nurse at a New Jersey hospital. According to marketplace.org, while Griffin was there, she noticed lots of veterans had lost the ability to use their limbs. She decided to create an invention that would allow paralyzed veterans to feed themselves using a tube they could bite on with their teeth.

Even though she had worked for so long and invested thousands of dollars of her own money into her invention, the VA wasn't interested in paying the $100,000. So instead, she donated it to the French government who used it in military hospitals nationwide.

Bessie was determined to prove "that as a black female, we can do more than nurse their babies and clean their toilets."

Jill Byrne is an operating room Nurse who created a garment that could help surgeons reduce heat stress. Heat shortened the tempers and focus of surgeons. So Jill fashioned a vest from scrap draping material common in hospitals. Outfitted with pockets for re-freezable ice packs placed around the body, the garment was designed to fit under a surgical gown. She created this piece in her living room.

Heat stress is an occupational hazard for surgeons. They must keep the thermostat in operating rooms above 68 degrees—a standard set by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services—and that's before factoring in warmth from lights, impervious layers of protective clothing and the intense physical demands of some surgeries, such as joint replacements.

As little as 30 minutes of overheating starts to tax internal organs and is associated with weight gain, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and a hindrance on cognitive performance, according to peer-reviewed research and stress studies by the Mayo Clinic.

According to medicalxpress.com,  the first surgeon who wore the cooling vest showed such a dramatic change in personality, Byrne said, he was singing show tunes and was calm, polite and clear of mind during the procedure.

In a product trial at several Cleveland Clinic facilities, 97 percent of the surgeons, technicians and nurses who tested the vest said they would wear it again; it was lauded for its low cost, light weight and how its disposability does not create an additional source of contamination or laundry.

Byrne secured a provisional patent and is working with a team from Cleveland Clinic Innovations to license the property to a third-party manufacturer, and the vest could be for sale within a year.

Registered Nurse Georgann Carrubba created a product that could improve the quality of life for the more than 800,000 Americans who use ostomy pouches after surgeries. The Choice Cap System and Nurse Carrubba went before a panel of judges at the Rochester Venture Challenge and won the $25,000 grand prize.

The cap system is a double-flanged wafer that a patient could then connect to either a traditional pouch, a light-weight, air-tight and waterproof cap; or a smaller pouch stored in the cap.

Genesee Community College Director of Nursing Kathleen Palumbo said, “Put yourself in the place of these patients — having a bag on your abdomen that fills with stool, that sometimes smells. Even going to the grocery store, a restaurant, never mind swimming, playing golf, tennis or anything like that. Some of these people become virtual shut-ins, they become afraid, embarrassed.”

The Choice Cap is meant to add a more secure and less obtrusive option that will work and cost the same as the traditional systems. Carrubba said users can be more comfortable in public, in activities and in intimate situations.

“One of the biggest struggles patients had was changing their lifestyle to accommodate a pouch,” Carrubba said. “This is going to bring them back to doing the activities they’ve avoided or feared.”

A Nurse named Sister Jean Ward invented neonatal phototherapy in the 1950's. She was in charge of the Premature Unit at Rochford General Hospital in Essex, England and realized that sunlight reduced jaundice in newborns and premature infants. This discovery led to phototherapy, which probably is the most common clinical treatment applied to newborn infants.

Anita Dorr, RN invented the first crash cart in 1968. According to workingnurse.com, while working in the emergency department she became concerned about how long it took the staff to round up all the equipment needed to treat a critically ill patient. With her staff, she compiled a list of items that would be needed in any type of emergency.

Anita and her husband John measured everything and built a red-painted wood prototype in their basement. The original cart had a laminate top and included wheels for quick movement to the bedside. Everyone called it the crisis cart.

Nurse Adda May Allen worked at Columbia Hospital in Washington, D.C. in the 1940s. Allen realized it was exhausting for babies to nurse on bottles so she created a disposable liner that moms and hospitals could throw away after just one use. While a baby sucked on a traditional bottle, a partial vacuum formed, inverting the nipple. A plastic liner, however, allowed the sides to close in as a baby drank her milk.

In 1985, Nurse Teri Barton-Salinas wanted to make IV lines different colors to reduce medical errors. Barton-Salinas got the idea when she was working as a labor delivery Nurse and had to use the lines in newborns.

According to dailyrepublic.com, it remained only an idea until 2003 when she and her sister, Gail Barton-Hay, got what they call ColorSafe IV Lines patented. Now, with the help of retired California Highway Patrol officer Royce Brooks, who runs Creative Safety Solutions, the two nurses hope to make hospitals and medical centers safer with their invention.

We hope you are inspired by these creative Nurses and the improvements they contributed to the medical community. Do you have an idea to make things better for you and your patients? If so, how about acting on it? We’d love to hear about it!