A Year of Reimagining Nursing
One year ago, 10 nurse-led projects were launched to reimagine nursing and health care—and what an exciting year it’s been. From nursing education to reimbursement, all the projects address critical issues within the profession from different angles.
The pilot projects are moving rapidly to get us to a future where health care is equitable and easily accessible, and nurses are less likely to burn out doing what they love.
By 2025, each project will deliver evidence demonstrating their impact. The Reimagining Nursing Initiative aims to bring the most successful project to scale with the eventual goal of industry-wide adoption. What makes the Initiative unique is that each pilot project provides a model that others can adopt and modify based on their available resources.
Here are some of the projects’ first-year results:
The Ohio State University’s Disrupting Nursing Education with XR, AI and ML has engaged more than 600 prelicensure students in thoughtful immersive experiences and performed more than 1,300 simulations designed to replicate real-world nursing scenarios. “One simulation allowed me to see life as someone experiencing homelessness,” said recent graduate Kristen Devolve, BSN. “You learn not to have preconceived notions about people and instead meet them with empathy.”
ChristianaCare’s Driving Nursing Outcomes through Robotics is saving staff thousands of hours in task time. Since Moxi’s introduction, the collaborative robot (cobot) has worked more than 22 hours daily, delivering items from the pharmacy to nurses’ floors and stations. ChristianaCare now estimates that more than 11,000 deliveries have been completed, amounting to 5,000 hours of staff time. “Moxi allowed me to spend more time at the bedside. I ran around less, and the supplies I needed were getting to me faster than before,” said Amanda Spence, RN, who was part of the research group of nurses who worked with Moxi in its initial implementation.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing selected 10 pilot schools for their Competency-Based Education for Practice-Ready Nurses project. These institutions are geographically and resource-diverse and will focus on better-preparing nursing students to improve health outcomes for groups of people instead of one person at a time. “More attention needs to be placed on population health and preparing nurses, so they really see this as part of their role across the continuum of care,” said Joan M. Stanley, PhD, NP, FAAN, FAANP, AACN’s Chief Academic Officer.
At Chamberlain University, more than 265 students enrolled in the first cohort of its Practice-Ready, Specialty-Focused™ Nurse Education perioperative course. More than 92 percent of the students completed the course—Megan Muñoz is one of them. “I’m going to end up working somewhere in the specialty,” she told Outpatient Magazine. “I really liked same-day surgery, especially pre-op and recovery. Patients there are feeling anxious, so it’s nice to be able to talk to them about how they’re feeling and calm them down as best as you can.”
Looking Ahead to a Reimagined Profession
As we look forward to the rest of 2023, our projects continue to address critical areas of health care. For example, Oregon Health Sciences University and its project Making Nursing Visible for Health Communities is providing health care with a community health-based staff that understands the comprehensive needs of those they serve. “Instead of replicating the current delivery model where people come to clinics to receive care, we have nurses go out into the community where people live to deliver the care they need, and their services are covered by insurance,” said the project’s lead Seiko Izumi, Ph.D., R.N., an associate professor in the OHSU School of Nursing, “We’re envisioning a new world—for nurses and their communities—that embodies truly person-centered, accessible care.”
More than a year ago, we put out a call to reimagine nursing and received more than 300 applications. After months of consideration—we landed on 10 pilot projects that promised far-reaching and replicable change. Reimagining an entire profession requires innovative ideas, tremendous effort, and support. Join us as we follow the projects and continue to track their incredible progress.