Karen Giuliano, associate professor at the Institute for Applied Life Sciences and the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, along with Kelly Landsman, a nurse-biomedical engineer in Minneapolis, are writing a new column for the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) called Nurse Innovators.
Their first column, Health Care Innovation: Embracing the Nurse-Engineer Partnership, was published this month. It introduces the series, which will explore nurse-engineer partnerships and how to replicate models of collaboration between the disciplines.
Giuliano is also co-director of the newly formed Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation, working closely with engineering co-director Frank Sup, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering.
“The Center is designed to facilitate clinical, academic and industry collaborations to prepare nursing and engineering students to lead in health-care innovation,” Giuliano says.
A longtime critical care nurse and medical device developer, Giuliano says nurses and engineers can work together to turn “work-arounds” that nurses often create into innovations that improve patient care and the nursing workplace.
“Empowering nurses to become innovators, forming nurse-engineer partnerships, creating a path for engineers to enter nursing, and encouraging nurses to be trained in engineering are all strategies that can help create the infrastructure needed for meaningful health care innovation,” the authors write.
Giuliano and Landsman discuss the new column in an AJN podcast.