NUR 444 Module 1 Innovation and the Individual Short Paper Example

The Nurse Who Fixes the Workaround: Innovation, Innovator Traits and One Orthopedic Nurse's Self-Assessment

Student Name

Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University

NUR 444: Innovation in Nursing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

The Nurse Who Fixes the Workaround: Innovation, Innovator Traits and One Orthopedic Nurse's Self-Assessment

Innovation is often pictured as a new device or a startup, but most innovation in health care is smaller: a new way of doing something that creates value for patients, staff or the organization. Our text describes innovation as the introduction of something new that is put into use, which separates it from creativity, the generation of ideas that may never leave the notebook (Friberg & Saewert, 2023). By that definition, a nurse who redesigns a confusing discharge process and gets the unit to adopt it is an innovator, even if no patent is involved. This paper describes the traits and competencies associated with innovators, assesses my own, and explains why nursing is well placed to lead.

Characteristics and Competencies of Innovators

Innovators tend to share several characteristics. They are curious and keep asking why a routine exists at all. They observe closely and notice small problems others accept as normal. They connect ideas from different fields, tolerate uncertainty, and are willing to try something that might fail. Competencies are the skills that turn those traits into results: defining a problem clearly, involving the people affected, testing ideas on a small scale, communicating them persuasively, and understanding how the organization makes decisions.

One competency is easy to overlook. A systematic review of nurses' problem-solving found that nurses facing broken work systems usually prefer quick fixes, or workarounds, over improvements that stop the problem from happening again (Vanbelleghem et al., 2022). The authors described a workaround culture in which operational failures persist because the people who see them most are too busy, or too unsupported, to fix their causes. In this light, the defining competency of a nurse innovator may be the habit of second-order problem solving: noticing a workaround and asking what it would take to make it unnecessary.

My Own Characteristics

I have some of these traits. I am observant, which is part of being an orthopedic nurse; I notice when a patient is guarding a knee or when a family looks lost at discharge. I am persistent and comfortable teaching. I also connect ideas across settings, since I worked in home health before moving to the hospital and know what patients struggle with after they leave.

I lack others. I avoid risk at work, partly because nursing culture rewards following protocol, and I rarely speak up in meetings with leaders. I am a skilled workaround nurse. When our post-operative teaching handouts were out of stock, I printed my own; when Spanish-speaking patients could not follow the exercise sheet, I recorded a short video on my phone with an interpreter. Both were workarounds that helped individual patients but changed nothing for the next nurse. My development goal for this course is to turn one of those workarounds into a tested, adopted improvement, which will require competencies I have not used much: building a case, involving colleagues and leaders, and measuring results.

Why Nursing Is Poised to Lead Innovation

Nurses are the largest health care workforce and spend more time with patients than any other profession. They see where processes fail, how patients experience care, and which workarounds staff rely on every day. These vantage points make nurses natural sources of practical innovation. Nurses also bridge clinical, operational and human concerns, which is the combination most innovations in health care need to succeed. Leadership matters here as well: a large review tied people-centered leadership to more satisfied, more engaged nursing staff (Cummings et al., 2018). What nurses often lack is time, permission and preparation to act on what they see, and courses like this one, along with organizations that protect time for improvement, can close that gap.

Conclusion

Innovation in nursing is less about invention than about deciding that a problem deserves a real solution. I already notice problems and improvise around them. The work ahead is to become the nurse who fixes the workaround, taking an idea from my own unit through design, testing and adoption.

References

Cummings, G. G., Tate, K., Lee, S., Wong, C. A., Paananen, T., Micaroni, S. P. M., & Chatterjee, G. E. (2018). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 85, 19-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.04.016

Friberg, E. E., & Saewert, K. J. (Eds.). (2023). Conceptual foundations: The bridge to professional nursing practice (8th ed.). Elsevier.

Vanbelleghem, S., De Regge, M., Van Nieuwenhove, Y., & Gemmel, P. (2022). Barriers and enablers of second-order problem-solving behavior: How nurses can break away from the workaround culture. Quality Management in Health Care, 31(3), 130-142. https://doi.org/10.1097/QMH.0000000000000385