Over the past few months, we've explored various facets of nursing, including Role Transition Theory, Professional Identity in Nursing (PIN), and the intersection of Innovation, Leadership, and Healthy Work Environments. In our discussion with Dr. Joseph, we touched on innovation and how PIN leads to nurses' desire to innovate, but I wanted to know more!  As a big supporter of nursing innovation and an online nurse residency program director, I have had the honor of connecting with the National Consortium for Innovativeness in Healthcare. Their goal is to advance collaborative innovation across both academia and practice. This amazing group of leaders is focused on researching innovativeness in healthcare, including the structural and relational capacity for innovation. In the future, the hope is to bring together nurses who are innovating with academic leaders in practice to leverage synergy, increase capacity, and improve the nurses' potential for innovation. I can’t wait to continue to engage with this group and learn more about how to help organizations support innovation in their workforce.  

All this talk about innovation in nursing often gets me thinking about if and how we can integrate more content around the concept of innovation into our program. In this month’s Beyond Nurse Residency podcast episode, I had the opportunity to connect with representatives from the Nurse Innovators Program provided through UI Ventures in the Office of Innovation at the University of Iowa. This is one local group that is already taking steps to bring opportunities for innovation to practice organizations.  We chatted about how integrating innovation in nurse residency programs could positively impact new graduates, organizations, and the nursing profession. We learned about a unique opportunity nurses throughout the state of Iowa have to bring their ideas to life, and we even got the opportunity to hear from Molly Kucera, one of the early nurse innovators of this program who is on her way to manufacturing and selling her very own innovative product. This was such an exciting conversation. You don’t want to miss it! 

The future of healthcare innovation depends on our understanding of how our systems and relationships within those systems can support new idea generation and bring them to life. This will take practice and academia working together to embrace and nurture innovation. Nurse leaders supporting the new graduate nurse transition and intentionally nurturing professional identity formation will naturally make their workforce more comfortable with innovation. In addition, integrating content around this topic into nurse residency programs can equip new nurses with the skills and mindset needed to address the challenges of modern healthcare from the very beginning. This approach benefits individual nurses, strengthens organizations, and improves patient care. As we move forward, let us commit to fostering a culture of innovativeness and professional growth, ensuring a bright future for the nursing profession.