Technological innovations with and for nurses: Insights from a transdisciplinary initiative (Preprint)

Abstract

<sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> There is great potential in technologies, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, to support nurses. However, their effective adoption and implementation is hampered by limited nurse involvement and insufficient transdisciplinary collaboration. </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> (1) Better understanding nurses’ current challenges and needs to identify opportunities for technological innovations that can address these challenges and needs; (2) Establishing a transdisciplinary process with ethnographic methods and participatory design for co-creating innovation opportunities that matter to nurses and are technically feasible and organizationally viable. </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> We enacted transdisciplinary collaboration by purposefully combining an ethnographic approach and participatory design workshops at a Dutch university hospital. Participants included nurses, nurse managers, organizational leaders, health technology experts, and academic researchers representing at least five different disciplines. First, we employed ethnographic methods to gain a detailed understanding of nurses’ daily work. This includes observations of bedside nurses during 16 full shifts, and interviews with nine nurses and managers about their experiences and technology needs. Following this, we organized 12 participatory design workshops to deepen our understanding of nursing workflows and subtasks: (1) three journey mapping sessions with nurses from four wards to map detailed task flows during shifts; (2) eight opportunity identification sessions with nurses and multiple stakeholders to identify 20 innovation opportunities; and (3) an impact versus effort workshop for shared decision-making on which innovation opportunities to prioritize. These workshops promoted shared learning among nurses and nursing scientists, organizational managers, technology practitioners, robotics engineers, designers, health technology experts, and researchers. </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> Based on the observations and interviews, we identified four overarching categories that capture the complexity of nursing work, and its associated technological needs: (1) nursing tasks with an unpredictable nature of the work and the need for constant decision-making and prioritization; (2) current tools nurses use and expressed needs for future ones; (3) affects and emotions associated with frequent interruptions during work, the use of technology and people at work; and (4) organizational management and collaboration across hospital disciplines. These findings guided the participatory design workshops, resulting in the identification of 20 potential innovation opportunities. The subsequent “Impact versus Effort” workshop collectively prioritized high-impact, high-effort areas such as reducing documentation load, looking for and fetching materials, and minimizing alarm interruptions. </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> This study highlights the complexity of nursing work and the importance of addressing nurses’ technological needs through a transdisciplinary process with ethnographic methods and participatory design. Empowering nurses as key and active partners in innovation and research, supported by organizational readiness and education, is essential for developing and implementing technologies that improve care quality, efficiency, and workforce sustainability. This established approach can help to empower nurses in prioritizing, developing, and implementing viable innovations that truly enhance job satisfaction and efficiency in nursing. </sec> <sec> <title>CLINICALTRIAL</title> NA. </sec>

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