GNSA Bulletin: July 2026

This Month’s Highlight: Innovation in Action: Reframing the "New Idea" in Everyday Nursing Practice

If you are like me, when you hear the word "innovation," a very specific image tends to come to mind. Perhaps it is a gleaming medical device fresh off a Silicon Valley assembly line, a complex artificial intelligence platform that promises to revolutionize diagnostics, or a visionary entrepreneur in a lab coat unveiling the future of healthcare at a TED Talk. For many graduate nursing students who are, let us be honest, at capacity managing six patients, pleading to secure a preceptor, or waist-deep in dissertation revisions, this picture of innovation can feel not just intimidating, but entirely disconnected from reality.

It is common to hear sentiments like, "I am not an idea person," or "I feel more comfortable doing what has already been proven to work." These are not admissions of failure; they reflect the deeply ingrained, safety-first culture of nursing, a culture that exists for very good reasons. However, this perspective overlooks a critical truth: innovation in nursing is not exclusively about technology or ground-breaking inventions. It is often found in the everyday, incremental changes that improve patient care, streamline workflows, and make the work environment a little less chaotic (Cianelli et al., 2016).

Graduate nursing students and nurse leaders have the capacity to be innovators through divergent thinking, practical problem-solving, and the kind of creative resourcefulness that nurses have been quietly exercising since long before anyone called it "innovation." Innovation, at its core, is the intentional introduction and application of ideas, processes, products, or procedures that are new to a specific unit or organization, designed to significantly benefit the individual, the group, or wider society (Thomas et al., 2016). Notice that the definition does not say "new to the entire world." It says new to your unit, your organization, and your team. That is a more practical and achievable milestone.

In the healthcare setting, the American Nurses Association (ANA) defines nursing innovation as the design, invention, development, or implementation of new or altered products, services, systems, or organizational structures to create new value (Cianelli et al., 2016). This definition is broad enough to encompass everything from redesigning a patient handoff protocol to reorganizing a supply closet to reduce the daily treasure hunt for 4x4 gauze pads. Both are innovations. One happens to photograph better for a press release.

Nurses are natural problem solvers. The ability to assess a situation, identify a barrier, and create a workaround is practically a job requirement. These "workarounds," when formalized, documented, and shared, are not just clever hacks; they are innovations. Consider the following forms of nursing innovation that rarely make headlines but profoundly shape care delivery: process and workflow redesign; enhancing team communication; patient education and advocacy; and addressing social determinants of health.

For graduate nursing students preparing to step into leadership roles, fostering a culture that supports innovation is just as important as generating ideas. After all, even the best idea will die a quiet death on a sticky note if the environment does not support its growth. The ANA's Innovation Road Map identifies several key characteristics that leaders must cultivate and, importantly, model within their organizations (Cianelli et al., 2016):

• Divergent Thinking: generating multiple solutions and questioning the status quo. Encourage others to ask "why" and "what if." Shift focus from reacting to problems to anticipating them before the next near-miss forces the conversation.
• Risk Taking: trying new approaches that deviate from current practices. Support others who propose new ideas, even when they challenge existing norms, provided patient safety is maintained.
• Failure Tolerance: viewing failure as a learning opportunity rather than a career-ending event. Create a blame-free environment where unsuccessful pilot projects are analyzed for lessons, not used as cautionary tales at meetings.
• Agility and Flexibility: adapting quickly to changing circumstances and new information. Be willing to pivot when an implemented change is not yielding the desired results and resist the temptation to defend a plan simply because it took three months to get approved.
• Autonomy and Freedom: giving employees the latitude to complete tasks as they see fit, act on sound clinical judgment, and participate in decision-making without being constantly double-checked. Shift away from top-down management approaches that stifle creativity. Communicate clearly that nurses have the freedom to act within their full scope of practice because, as it turns out, treating professionals like professionals tends to bring out their best work (Cianelli et al., 2016).

It is worth mentioning that not everything marketed as innovation functions that way once it reaches the floor. Levins (2024) documented how technologies designed to ease nursing workloads, such as expanded alarm systems and facility-wide communication devices, often added burden and accelerated burnout. The question future nurse leaders must keep asking is not whether something looks innovative, but whether the people closest to the problem had any say in defining it.

Snow (2019) makes clear that innovation is not a personality trait some nurses are born with, and others lack; it is a competency that develops through practice, reflection, and a willingness to question what has always been done. Most nurses can recall a moment when they drew a rough diagram on a paper towel to help a patient understand a procedure, quietly rearranged a crash cart for the most-used items actually to be within reach, or chose their words more carefully than any protocol required because the family in front of them needed something beyond clinical accuracy. None of those nurses filed a patent. None of them pitched an idea to a hospital board. They saw a gap and closed it, which, at its core, is exactly what innovation is.

By reframing innovation as practical problem-solving and process improvement, graduate nursing students can recognize their inherent potential to lead change, improve patient care, and shape the future of the profession — not someday, not after earning one more credential, but right now, in the work they are already doing every single day.

References

Cianelli, R., Clipper, B., Freeman, R., Goldstein, J., & Wyatt, T. H. (2016). The innovation road map: A guide for nurse leaders. American Nurses Association. https://www.nursingworld.org/globalassets/ana/innovations-roadmap-english.pdf

Levins, H. (2024, May 29). Nursing advances that aren't and other trends in health care innovation. Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania. https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/nursing-advances-that-arent-and-other-trends-in-health-care-innovation/

Snow, F. (2019). Creativity and innovation: An essential competency for the nurse leader. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 43(4), 306–312. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000367

Thomas, T. W., Seifert, P. C., & Joyner, J. C. (2016). Registered nurses leading innovative changes. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(3), Manuscript 3. https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol21No03Man03

Kayce Cordray, BSN, RN
DNP Student
Oral Roberts University
GNSA Leadership Council Member