Because it’s not just about developing a new gizmo or gadget. It’s about creating new models of care, safety practices, more efficient processes — and even innovations that tackle social challenges to improve patient outcomes.
- IntroNurse-led innovation isn
Because it’s not just about developing a new gizmo or gadget. It’s about creating new models of care, safety practices, more efficient processes — and even innovations that tackle social challenges to improve patient outcomes.
- IntroNurse-led innovation isn’t new. It began with the first recognized nurse innovator, Florence Nightingale, in the 19th century. That was over 160 years ago. Since then, nurses have been on the frontlines of every single health crisis and they’ve spearheaded significant breakthroughs in patient care, disease prevention, and medical devices.
Nurses have laid the groundwork for decades of innovation. In the following timeline, you’ll see how.Intro
- 1854Florence Nightingale, a Model for Nurse Innovation
Florence Nightingale became the model for how nurses innovate, thanks to her revolutionary hygiene practices during the Crimean War. After working in desperate conditions at the Army hospital in Scutari Turkey, Florence and her medical team improved its facilities from top to bottom. They cleaned the wards, set up a kitchen, and provided wounded soldiers with the first form of what’s now known as “quality care.”
As a result, far fewer patients died from hygiene-related diseases, prompting hospitals all over the world to formally adopt Florence’s practices — practices that are still used today.
- 1939Elizabeth Kenny and the Treatment of Polio
Like her predecessors, Elizabeth Kenny had no formal nursing education, but she would still be remembered for her breakthrough treatment of polio. When “Sister Kenny” (a name she earned in the Australian military) saw her first polio case, she had a hypothesis: that the patient’s limbs were stiff but not permanently paralyzed.
Unaware that stiff braces were the accepted medical treatment at the time, she used hot packs and encouraged gentle movement. This method re-taught patients how to use limbs that had been only temporarily paralyzed by the virus, revolutionizing the treatment of the disease.
- 1940sAdda May Allen, Inventor of Disposable Liners for Baby Bottles
Adda May Allen was a nurse at Columbia Hospital in Washington D.C. when she invented disposable liners for baby bottles. Realizing that babies often struggled to feed from traditional bottles, Adda created a disposable, collapsible liner that hospitals and moms at home could use once then throw away. It made it easier for babies to suck milk by eliminating the vacuum that traditional bottles created, working like a bag that closed in on its sides as a baby drank.1940s
- 1943Bessie Blount Griffin, Inventor of the Electronic Feeding Device
African American nurse, Bessie Blount Griffin, was also a physical therapist and a forensic scientist. But she’s best known in the nursing community as the inventor of the electronic feeding device. While working at the Bronx Hospital in New York, Bessie invented an electric self-feeding tube for amputees, which could transport individual bites of food to a patient's mouth. All the patient had to do was bite down on the tube and the food would dispense from an attached machine.
Bessie would later design a neck frame for injured or ill patients that could hold a bowl or cup close to their face as a "portable receptacle support."
- 1950sSister Jean Ward and the Treatment for Jaundice in Infants
Sister Jean Ward made a simple observation about sunlight that would lead to the most common clinical treatment for jaundice in infants. As Sister Jean was caring for newborns — during her time as head of the Premature Unit at Rochford General Hospital in Essex, England — she realized that sun exposure greatly reduced jaundice and its effects on the skin and liver.
This discovery led to neonatal phototherapy, a practice that safely and effectively treats the condition by exposing babies to artificial UV light.1950s
- 1954Elise Sorensen and the First Disposable Ostomy Bag
Elise Sorensen was the innovator behind the first disposable ostomy bag, which helps patients with post-surgery stomas feel more comfortable doing everyday things. Following her sister’s ostomy operation — a procedure that removes the end of the intestine through the abdomen, allowing waste to exit through a surgically-created st