Nurses are agents of change and positioned to lead innovation | 2025 will look different
Updated: Jun 21, 2021
Nurses are leading the change to healthcare challenges
Past decades and generations saw “Nurses as caregivers” – while that was the nurses’ role at that time, nurses today are recognized for delivering much more. The nurse of today works in collaboration with other caregivers to deliver optimal care, provides leadership to the healthcare team, and works to solve difficult challenges for patients and colleagues.
The nurse today is current – current with medical knowledge, business knowledge – the business of healthcare, demonstrates technical aptitude – working with complex machines and electronic communications, applies forward-thinking skills; and is – well, future smart. The 2020 nurse is positioned to be an innovator and expected to be more by 2025. As the BDO reports, “The changes happening today to unleash nurse innovators are likely to shift the leadership makeup at health organizations by 2025.”
A patient sees more of a nurse than any other person in the healthcare setting. As Therese S. Richmond noted in the BDO report, Unleashing Nurse-Led Innovation, "Every product and process that touches a patient goes through a nurse". With a critical shortage of nurses, Isabelle Roughol, healthcare organizations, providers, regulators and educational institutions have recognized the role of nurses and are working to capitalize and maximize nurses as change-agents.
Laser–focused takes us forward —
Mike Miliard | HIMSS Media summarizes the transition: (May 6, 2019)
1. Get rid of any policy or procedure barriers that discourage nurses from "practicing to their full scope"
2. Encourage specific new approaches to nursing innovation, such as design thinking and entrepreneurship skills
3. Create enterprise-wide structures and incentives that encourage interdisciplinary innovation teams
4. Elevate at least one nursing leader to the C-suite
Take-away —
Nurses and the technology they use each day are positioned to be major players in the ongoing digital transformation of healthcare.
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