Fostering a Culture of Innovation: A Nurse Manager’s Call to Action

Candace McNulty, MSN, RN

Understanding the value of nurse-led innovations is the key to unlocking solutions to some of the most difficult health care system challenges.

It is a well-known fact that nurses clock more face time with patients than any other health care team member. In the rapidly evolving health care industry, it is crucial for frontline nursing professionals to drive innovation and process improvement. It’s not only important to identify pain points, but also to collaborate on potential innovative solutions that can enhance the delivery of health care services. To achieve this, it is essential to have strong leadership that provides dedicated time and resources to reduce system redundancies that may interfere with the team’s ability to do their job effectively. Nurse leaders must create an environment that fosters creativity and encourages team members to contribute their ideas and expertise. This will not only help with patient outcomes but increase job retention and satisfaction.

Innovation is a skill that must be learned, practiced, and developed. Over time, you begin to see a shift in how nurses think and how they respond to problems as they use human-centered design to focus on the problem. At the VA Orlando Healthcare System, we have equipped our nurses with the innovation skillset needed to shift their mindset while at work and ultimately drive a culture of innovation. A culture of innovation is a space where the team feels psychologically safe to speak freely, fail and pivot, explore their ideas and look beyond their biases. Each problem we explore, even if it is unfeasible, contributes to our progress in discovering solutions that can propel significant change. Our motto is, “how might we” not “that can’t be.”  For my team, that looks like brainstorming solutions for the growing number of dementia patients in acute care. Imagine robotic pets, an ever-faithful companion, or a virtual reality mindfulness journey, offering a soothing respite from reality. Pilot projects like these not only improve the quality of care for our veterans, but also empower the team, leading to greater job satisfaction. 

Innovation-led education

Traditional nursing education focuses on fundamental clinical knowledge and skills. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that these interventions are falling short. Nurses need to be surrounded by a culture of innovation, taught formal process improvement skills, and engage in simulation-based learning. We support this culture of innovation for our employees in several ways:

• Employee innovation training opportunities (human-centered design with a foundation of empathy)
• Lean Six Sigma training for continuous process improvement skills
• Simulation lab-based training to practice
• Using Virtual Reality (VR) for empathy-based nursing education
• Whole health resiliency skills - Employee well-being is an essential element of the Pathway to Excellence®

Innovation Shark Tank Competitions  

We encourage the nurses on our team to come up with thoughtful, innovative solutions to the obstacles and hiccups that may cause frustration during their workday. I pose the question: If there were no limits, what would you propose to fix or improve the situation? When an employee has an innovative solution they want to pilot, they can participate in our bi-annual local Shark Tank Competition to have an opportunity to “pitch” their idea to our executive leadership team and showcase how it would make an impact. Promising projects can be shared within the VA Innovation Ecosystem which provides a platform to replicate and scale to other sites.

Nurse managers have a crucial role to play in promoting innovation and improvement. It’s time we champion our frontline staff’s ideas and advocate for dedicated time for innovation and improvement projects. Above all else, we must strive to challenge the existing norms, foster an atmosphere that encourages creativity, and contemplate what the future of work should entail.