The intersection of health care and technology is innovation
Twenty years ago, when I thought of technology in nursing, I thought of the IV pump that I used to administer medication to my patients. Now, I think of the cloud, integrated systems solutions, and devices that can improve clinical workflow. With the evolution of health IT, nurses are better connected to information, other care team members, and their patients than ever before. And it’s exciting to see how nurses today are innovating with cloud and mobile solutions to improve patient care and safety.
Because nurses are at the forefront of health care and on average outnumber physicians three to one, it’s crucial that they’re involved in guiding the development of new technology solutions for the health industry. Toward that end, I was thrilled to co-chair an educational and networking event focused on health IT at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Held during Nurses Week, it connected nursing thought leaders from Johns Hopkins and organizations such as the National League for Nursing with thought leaders from two profoundly innovative companies: Microsoft and Under Armour. The goal: get creative in how we redesign patient care.
Speakers gave brief presentations, and many thought-provoking conversations ensued. Nurses and IT professionals who may never otherwise have had a chance to meet were together in one room sharing their expertise with one another. We pooled our collective knowledge to reimagine how modern technologies could further transform patient care. For example, what if patients who were experiencing joint pain wore sensors that captured their body mechanics-and nurses could access and analyze that information on their device of choice to help them diagnose the cause of pain? Or, what if we could harness today’s technologies to create germ-proof scrubs?
The event was a great example of a concept I’m passionate about: design thinking. Design thinking means gaining vital insights from people from many disciplines as a key ingredient in the development of health IT-and then integrating those insights into the design of technologies, workflows, and processes.
Design thinking was integral to a pilot project taking place at the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s surgical intensive care unit that I’ve been personally involved in. Called Project Emerge, it’s an innovative idea that has turned into clinical and patient mobile apps that are improving the care and experience of critically ill patients. I’ll discuss design thinking and Project Emerge in more detail in my next blogs, so check back here in about a month’s time.
In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts from the frontlines of nursing. What are your ideas for how technology could be used to innovate patient workflow and care? Let us know via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
