“I remember being a young nurse,” Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL, nurse entrepreneur, and co-founder of SONSIEL, shares. “I went to my manager with ideas to improve patient care. I was told, ‘That’s nice, but do you mind working Saturday?’ For me, innovation was one of those rare times when I felt seen and heard as a nurse. When you can identify a problem, and people take it seriously, it’s empowering.” 

Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN, Director of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing adds, “Nurses shouldn’t be afraid to innovate—they’re already doing it. It’s just called something different: the nursing process.”

The Nursing Beat recently conducted a study on nursing innovation with over 300 respondents from all over the United States, including over 200 nurses and other healthcare professionals. 

Read on to learn more about the survey’s results and what nursing innovation experts like Love and Leary have to add.

Survey Results

Over 300 survey respondents from 45 states answered questions about their thoughts on nursing innovation and how they feel that nursing innovation is supported in the profession. 

Defining nursing innovation

Common themes in the hundreds of responses from the survey expressed thoughts like:

• Innovation is the process of creating something new
• Innovation is looking at problems in a different way
• Innovation is thinking outside the box

A nurse’s role in innovation

Here is what respondents said about their roles in innovation:

• 98.5% of respondents agreed that nurses play a pivotal role in innovation
• About 30% of respondents said if they had an innovative solution, they wouldn’t know where to go
• 3 out of 4 respondents said they believe they have the skills to implement innovations

Institutional support for nurse-led innovation

40% of respondents shared that they do not believe their institution supports nurse-led innovation. 

Here are some general sentiments elaborating on institutional support from the survey:

• It is difficult to find the correct department or contacts in an institution to support an innovation
• Institutions lack nurses in upper leadership positions
• It feels that implementing nurse-led innovation is cost-prohibitive for organizations
• Institutions that are supportive encourage mentorship, continuing education, brainstorming sessions, and unit-based councils. 

The Anatomy of Nursing Innovation

What makes up an innovation? Love and Leary each have their own preferred definitions:

• Leary: “My thoughts around innovation have changed over the years to be less about an end product and more about the mindset and framework you use to get to a solution. It’s using a human-centered and equity-centered design lens to understand the problem from the point of view of the people you’re designing for.”

• Love: “Innovation is the master of necessity. It’s when nurses are constantly MacGyvering or doing workarounds because the devices or systems they’re using fail them. Historically, this had a negative connotation. But now, that’s changing, and nurses are being recognized for their genius and insights.”

Leary says her PhD research shows that there are core individual and organizational traits and characteristics that support nurses being innovative. She reiterates that innovation is more about a methodology and a mindset while creating solutions that meet end-users needs,and doing so in a way that is equitable and just. 

Love shares a quote from Bill Gates: “Innovation is what distinguishes leaders from followers.” She also adds that it’s not about a specific product or device; it’s the mindset to change the status quo and continuously improve on what we thought was the standard of doing things. 

The Physiology of Nursing Innovation

How does innovation work? Love and Leary share that the framework for design thinking mirrors the nursing process:

• Empathize 
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test 

You can see how this process coincides with the nursing process of assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing, and evaluating. 

Leary wrote her dissertation on quantifying the characteristics of innovators. She found that the five main factors of successful innovation include:

• Viewing one’s self as an innovator
• Exposure to and attendance at human-centered design/design thinking (HCD/DT) and innovation activities
• Access to an institution that offers HCD/DT and innovation activities
• Opportunities to be innovative and creative
• Willingness to try new things

Love adds that if you are constantly frustrated with inefficient processes or lack of change in your nursing role, it’s likely an early indicator that you have innovative qualities. 

But what do you do if you feel you have innovative qualities, but don’t have a million-dollar idea? 

Leary believes you shouldn’t let that stop you from innovating. “Nurses don’t need to have the solution in mind first. In fact, they shouldn’t. The human-centered design framework allows the end-users to guide the process.” She adds that there’s no shortage of problems in healthcare that need solutions and that, as a nurse, you are excellent at identifying those problems. 

If you don’t feel supported by your institution, you aren’t alone. Love says, “Nurses have been put in a hierarchical position where we’re asked to do tasks, not fix problems. There’s a group of us fighting to change that and to make space for nurses who want to improve processes and systems.” 

Leary agrees, adding,

“If institutions want innovative nurses, they need to support them. There’s a significant return on investment when nurses feel supported in being creative and innovative because they’ll solve the institution’s problems, which benefits everyone.”

Final Thoughts

“Innovation is often about seeing what doesn’t yet exist or imagining a different way for the world to operate,” Love says. “For me, that’s always been the power of innovation. It’s about freedom.”

Leary shares, “It can feel lonely to be the only one in your institution thinking this way, but there are many of us out there willing to mentor and support you. You just need to be brave enough to reach out.”

Are you interested in innovation? Or do you have a solution to a problem you don't know what to do with? 

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to elevate your nursing skills! Participate in the NurseHack4Health Innovation Academy (virtual/asynchronous) and earn 2 contact hours while unleashing your innovative spirit. Stay tuned for your chance to dive into a NurseHack4Health 'mini' hack or Pitch-A-Thon to transform the nursing workforce and work environment.

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