Why Nurses Are Key to Medical Innovation | Ben Gran | TED

Introduction to Nursing and Innovation

In this section, the speaker discusses the intersection of nursing and innovation. They acknowledge that innovation in healthcare technology is growing rapidly but can be challenging for nurses to keep up with. The speaker emphasizes the importance of incorporating innovation into nursing education to empower future nurses to improve healthcare quality.

The Need for Innovation in Nursing Education

• Nurses are often too busy and not given the opportunity to innovate.

• Changing the attitude towards innovation during nursing education can lead to improved working conditions for healthcare professionals and better patient care.

• Innovation involves identifying problems and finding ways to make them better.

Understanding Innovation

This section explores the concept of innovation and its application in different contexts.

Definition of Innovation

• Innovation is a broad term that means looking at a problem, understanding it, and finding ways to improve it.

• It can be applied to existing systems or used to develop entirely new solutions.

Personal Story Inspiring Interest in Healthcare Innovation

The speaker shares a personal story that motivated their interest in healthcare innovation.

Personal Experience with Healthcare Innovation

• During an internship, the speaker expressed their passion for healthcare innovation and technology.

• The ward manager expressed skepticism about innovation, citing concerns about user-friendliness and increased workload.

Disconnect Between Developers and End Users in Healthcare Sector

The speaker reflects on a realization about the disconnect between developers of healthcare technologies and end users within the sector.

Disconnect Between Developers and End Users

• Many times, new technologies or processes introduced in healthcare are not user-friendly or add more workload.

• This disconnect between developers/engineers and end users creates frustration and resistance to innovation.

Challenges Faced by Nurses

This section highlights the challenges faced by nurses in their daily work, which can make adopting new technologies or processes difficult.

Daily Challenges of Nurses

• Nurses have a demanding workload that includes making reports, taking vitals, communicating with various healthcare professionals, and attending to patients' needs.

• They often cover for colleagues on sick leave and take on extra administrative roles.

• Dealing with call bells from dependent patients can be frustrating but also amusing.

Need for Innovation in Nursing

The speaker emphasizes the need for innovation in nursing due to changes in the healthcare system and projected shortages of healthcare professionals.

Changing Healthcare Landscape

• Nursing and the healthcare system have evolved significantly over the past few decades.

• New technologies are being introduced, but nursing education has not caught up.

• Aging population, increased cost of care, demanding patient needs, and a shortage of healthcare staff necessitate innovative solutions.

Frontline Healthcare Workers as Drivers of Innovation

This section highlights the role of frontline healthcare workers, particularly nurses, as drivers of innovation in the healthcare sector.

Role of Frontline Healthcare Workers

• Nurses have firsthand experience using existing technologies and understand areas that can be improved.

• By combining nurses' frontline experience with innovative approaches from businesspeople and engineers, significant improvements can be achieved.

• With projected global shortages in healthcare professionals, advancements and innovations cannot wait any longer.

Conclusion

The Issue with the Education System

The speaker discusses the limitations of the education system, particularly in the field of nursing, where students are often confined to a narrow focus on their profession without exploring other disciplines.

Lack of Exploration and Problem Solving

• Nursing education tends to create a "nursing bubble" within universities, limiting students' exposure to other fields and hindering their ability to think critically and problem solve.

• There is little emphasis on innovation and thinking outside the box in nursing education.

• Universities have diverse networks of students studying various subjects, but there is limited collaboration between different courses.

Importance of Networking and Collaboration

• The speaker highlights the benefits of networking and working in multi-professional teams through her experience in extracurricular innovation projects.

• Every student should have opportunities for cross-course collaboration to solve real-life problems.

• Establishing connections with students from different disciplines can lead to lifelong benefits.

Enriching Innovation Culture

The speaker shares her experience in establishing a nonprofit organization focused on promoting an innovative and entrepreneurial culture among university students.

Innovation Education within Nursing Studies

• While there are some initiatives for innovation education within nursing studies, it is still at an early stage and not given priority in classrooms.

Breaking the Bubble

• Educators are encouraged to allow students from different courses to collaborate, interact, network, and work on projects together.

• Cross-course collaboration has significant benefits for innovation.

Empowering Health Care Professionals

The speaker emphasizes the importance of developing easily adoptable technologies for nurses by providing them with opportunities to learn how to work within multi-professional teams during their education.

Drawing from Past Experiences

• Future health care professionals can draw from their past experiences and networks gained as students to initiate the innovation process when they encounter potential problems in their careers.

Integrative Approach

• Solving the challenges faced by nurses and health tech developers requires an integrative approach that considers education, technology, governance, leadership, laws, and finances.

Empowering Nurses through Innovation

The speaker encourages nurses and students to get more involved in innovation and shares resources available for them to develop ideas and improve patient care.

Getting Involved

• Nurses are encouraged to find like-minded people in societies, hospitals, or universities to share ideas and collaborate.

• There are various resources such as hackathons, incubators, and other services available to help construct innovative ideas in healthcare.

Empowerment through Innovation

• Studies have shown that innovation empowers nurses by improving patient care, technologies, and processes.

• Financial support, promotion of intellectual creativity within healthcare organizations, recognition of employees' contributions are essential for empowering nurses through innovation.

Barriers Preventing Nursing Innovation

The speaker discusses the barriers preventing nurses from innovating more effectively within their profession.

Overworked and Underappreciated

• Nurses often face challenges such as being overworked, burning out, underpaid, and feeling unappreciated within their own organizations.

• These factors hinder their ability to innovate effectively.

Lack of Opportunity

• Nurses are not offered sufficient opportunities to demonstrate their potential for innovation.

• AI and technologies may assume many tasks of nurses in the future; therefore, it is crucial to educate future nurses as stakeholders in the development of the healthcare system.