**5.4 Equitable**

Equitable care includes addressing social determinants of health. Social determinants of health include the categories of economic stability, education access and *Advancing the Nursing Profession through Innovation DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110704*

quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and build environment, and social and community context. There are variables within each category to be measured. Social determinants of health are part of Healthy People 2030 [47]. One may be interested in exploring how best to either collect such data in an equitable way from people and/or determine how to use such data for creating new healthcare innovations that can contribute to enhanced equity across all care settings.

### **5.5 Patient-centered**

Nurses and healthcare professionals cannot describe what patient-centered care means to patients unless one has also been a patient. To deliver patient-centered care, nurses and healthcare professionals must focus on providing individualized care. At times, patients may feel as though they are treated as a diagnosis or protocol rather than an individual person. This may not be the intention of the nurse or healthcare professional. Therefore, one may be interested in exploring how to reframe patientcentered care in such a way that patients feel known as people.

### **5.6 Timeliness**

Delivering care in a timely manner, void of delays, is important to all. However, delays do occur. Delays in the time desired to obtain an appointment with a provider from the time requested, delays in the time seen when in an emergency department waiting room, and delays in time to discharge from a hospital or facility are three commonly experienced care delays. An innovator may seek to find ways to reduce such delays for the patient.

The examples are meant to offer a way to consider where to start on identifying possible areas for innovation. There are ample opportunities for innovation within healthcare. The more nurses, healthcare professionals, and people in general who opt to engage in innovation, the more advancements, improvements, and transformations nursing and healthcare will see in the future.

## **6. Examine how innovation can be a focal point in academics practice research, scholarship, and policy**

Nursing and healthcare have persistent challenges that are in dire need of innovative solutions. Momentum for integrating innovation into the nursing profession as an active effort has continued to grow over the last decade across the globe. Through innovation, nursing, *(as a profession),* and healthcare, (*as an industry*), can further develop and advance for the benefit of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations at large affected by the persistent and emerging unmet needs affecting quality nursing and healthcare. Innovation occurs through people. People must be knowledgeable on the principles of innovation and how to apply it to increase the likelihood of successful adoption within the marketplace and society.

People cannot be expected to successfully develop new nursing and healthcare innovations without knowing how to do so. Therefore, nurses can and must be taught about innovation as a concept, prominent theories, methodologies, and how to apply into practice and research. There are five domains where innovation can be a focal point for inclusion. The five domains are: academics, practice, research, scholarship, and policy.

### **6.1 Academics**

To become a nurse, one must experience academic preparation. The nursing profession prepares registered nurses through undergraduate and graduate level education. Students can and must be academically prepared early in their academic nursing education on the foundational concepts, theories, and principles of innovation. Providing students with innovation education during undergraduate education will prepare future nurses with the tools to know how to create positive change as an innovation when faced with gaps in care (e.g., unmet needs). For those nursing students who opt to pursue graduate education, the foundational principles continue to be of importance as well as innovative leadership education (e.g., MS, DNP) and innovative research approaches that may lead to new discoveries (e.g., PhD). Additionally, there must be acknowledgement of the need for faculty preparation around nursing and healthcare innovation. Investing in the preparation of more faculty interested in or having an experiential background in innovation will provide a more effective experience for desired student outcomes.

### **6.2 Practice**

Nursing roles are largely practice based across the globe. The public depends on nurses and healthcare professionals' commitment to their practice. Yet, there are often areas where there is room for innovation in the day-to-day nursing practice. Workarounds are unfortunately a common nursing practice that are often indicative of a larger organizational level gap. While workarounds require innovative behaviors, the impact of the workaround is for the "n" of 1. If necessary, one might need to redo the workaround again the next day or for the next patient. Innovations also require innovative behaviors however they solve for the "n" of many at scale. As a profession, nursing must recognize workarounds for their clues as to possible innovations needed for development [48]. Nursing must also recognize the need for nurses to shift their mindsets away from workarounds toward innovations. This will require the academic preparation as stated above but also a supportive culture of innovation within the practice settings where new ideas can be shared and considered for development. Innovation centers are an emerging supportive structure at hospitals and academic centers in the United States.

### **6.3 Research**

Research is the discovery of new knowledge. Nursing science advances through conducting research studies to answer questions that remain unanswered about a particular phenomenon. The nursing profession and healthcare industry benefit from nursing research. While this chapter has largely focused on innovation as the outcome, innovative approaches to research may lead to novel outcomes. An innovative research approach may be reflected in the formed research question. Another innovative approach may be reflected in the methodological approach to the larger nursing issue. The approach could be in the methods used and/or the analysis of the data. With new or novel questions and/or approaches, the researcher may uncover new findings that contribute to the larger phenomenon. New findings may also reveal insights needed to determine a suitable innovation.

*Advancing the Nursing Profession through Innovation DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110704*

### **6.4 Scholarship**

Scholarship is the way in which new knowledge is generated and disseminated for the greater good of society. Scholarship may include discovery, teaching, integration, and/or application [49]. Discovery is the action of generating new knowledge and insights for the profession. Teaching is the action of educating students on the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for course content area. Professors aim to scale their knowledge to others through the teaching process. The integration and application of the new knowledge and teachings into practice can be done in many forms as nurses and healthcare professionals.

Innovation is an emerging specialty discipline for the nursing profession. As innovation continues to grow in focus and scope, innovators can recognize that there are four areas of scholarship where more innovation efforts are needed for nursing. The profession needs more innovative discoveries to address the current and future challenges. Professors of innovation are needed to teach students the fundamentals of innovation concepts, theories, methodologies, and applications for effectiveness. Additionally, such students will be needed to scale the knowledge to others across the profession in the same way that the nurse practitioner role and education grew over time. Integration and application will mean that innovators and innovative cultures will emerge for changes to occur throughout the profession.

### **6.5 Policy**

Health care is a highly regulated industry. Regulations determine what is legally permissible for healthcare delivery. Innovations can be advanced because of regulations or deterred to a potential future date. Additionally, healthcare costs are largely paid for by a third party (e.g., not the patient). In the United States, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is the largest payer of healthcare services [50]. Payer reimbursements can also be influence positively or negatively depending upon whether a reimbursable service. In the United States, telehealth services became a reimbursable service in March 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus global pandemic [51]. Despite the conceptualization of telehealth in the 1960's [52], adoption had been slow prior to the pandemic due to challenges in a viable business model. Innovators must be aware of the state of regulatory opportunities and challenges when pursuing an innovation. Additionally, innovators must also become participants in the policy process to support the advancement of nursing and healthcare through their eyes on the future.
