Innovation and Entrepreneurship
What it means:
- Innovation refers to a new way of thinking or doing that reduces time, cost, frustration, or barriers to care, resulting in better outcomes for patients, nurses, and health systems.
- Entrepreneurship is when you take an innovative idea and turn it into a nurse-led business.
Try it yourself:
- If you have a powerful idea for a nursing innovation, The Emory Hatchery offers the people, tools, and creative spaces you need to turn a raw idea into the right questions and attainable next steps.
Big Data and Data Science
What it means:
- Big data has many definitions, but in effect, it refers to the astronomical data sets that come from our never-ending use of devices, cell phones, electronic health records, and more.
- When taken together, these data give you the power to step outside your world view and see what’s happening across systems.
- You should care about this because, with access to big data, nurses can gather the insights they need to inform solutions that are grounded in the reality of what’s happening across healthcare today.
Try it yourself:
- Project NeLL is a big database and suite of applications for teaching and practicing data-driven nursing leadership.
- It was designed by nurses, for nurses, to address the real-world frustrations nurses face when gathering data.
- You can use NeLL on your own, from anywhere, and download data directly to your computer.
Informatics and Analytics
What it means:
- According to the American Nurses Association, “Nursing informatics (NI) is the specialty that integrates nursing science with multiple information and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice.”
- Analytics refers to the use of data and statistics to improve systems.
- If these subjects sound complicated, the truth is, they can be. But they’re also essential for nurses to grasp—and we’re doing everything we can to make them accessible and engaging for learners of all levels.
Try it yourself:
- The Center for Data Science (CDS) works with students and collaborators within Emory and beyond.
- CDS was established to bring the power of data-driven thinking to bear on healthcare’s greatest challenges.
- Every nurse who collaborates with CDS goes on to transform care through leading-edge tools and technologies.
- Services include mentorship on how to use ‘omics data, patent support, the development and testing of sensors, and more.
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
What it means:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computers and devices with the ability to think and reason independently.
- Machine learning is a subset of AI.
- It refers to the ability of machines and algorithms to “learn” and respond to users’ needs by analyzing data.
- The more you use certain systems, the more data they collect, and the better their ability to anticipate and address real-life needs.
Try it yourself:
- CDS scientists and collaborators are leading remarkable advancements in machine learning and AI.
- For instance, a team of investigators from Emory Nursing and Computer Science are developing a voice assistant tool for nurses, called CONQUER.
- CONQUER will allow nurses to say orders, ask questions, and chart on-the-go, saving time and freeing up resources at the frontlines of care.
Design Thinking
What it means:
- Design thinking is a way of seeing the world—not as a minefield of problems, but as a series of possibilities.
- Design thinkers approach problems as “learners” with a “beginner’s eye.”
- They follow a process that shares important similarities with the nursing process.
- A design thinker first aims to understand an issue by listening, empathizing, questioning their own assumptions, and thoroughly defining the problem.
- They then imagine new approaches, create prototypes, and try/test their prototypes until they find a solution that works.
Try it yourself:
- Nurses have always been design thinkers—even if they haven’t always known it.
- Emory Nursing is formalizing this overlap through our partnership with the Hatchery.
- Nursing faculty and Hatchery staff are cultivating an emerging workforce of design thinkers through mentorship, programming, seed funding, and more.
Team Science
What it means:
- Smart leaders don’t work alone—they bring together people, communities, and allies from across specialties and sectors.
- Nurse leaders know how to reconcile these perspectives to create nuanced solutions to healthcare challenges.
Try it yourself:
- When nurses are ready to build and prototype healthcare solutions, they will soon be able to do so through the Emory Nursing Learning Center’s Innovation Hub.
- The Innovation Hub, coming to Downtown Decatur, will be a place for nurses to join with community members, colleagues in business, computer science, engineering, and other fields to create interdisciplinary solutions.
Clinical Practice Innovation
What it means:
- Clinical practice innovation refers to the significant disruption of services delivered to customers, patients, providers, or students in the healthcare setting, within the context of a sustainable business model
- It can include changing processes and/or creating entirely new healthcare delivery models.
Try it yourself:
- Read about the Emory Healthcare Transformational Care Model.
- Learn from a powerful example: Emory’s nurse-led, patient and family-centered Integrated Memory Care Clinic.
- Listen to Season 1 Episode 8 of The Nurses Station on Nurse Innovators with the National Nurse Practitioner Entrepreneur Network founders.
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