Hillman Scholars Innovation Experience
Background
The Hillman Scholars Program in Nursing Innovation is “designed to produce the next generation of nurse researchers who will lead the realignment of health care to become more effective, patient-centered, accessible, equitable, and affordable.” The program “prepares nurse scholars with the substantive and methodological knowledge, vision and personal acumen to study, lead, change and shape the future of health care.”
To ensure the program leverages the most current, innovative approaches, the School of Nursing sought to incorporate design thinking and innovation into the Hillman Scholars curriculum starting in 2024.
Approach
Through a multi-phased design process over three years, the design team, which included Hillman scholars in every stage of training and Innovate Carolina team members, we sought to understand the current state of innovation practice in nursing education. Key goals included prototyping solutions to increase the reach and impact of existing strategies and leveraging institutional support at the dean and provost level to develop novel courses and opportunities to further student development in this area.
-
Empower Hillman Scholars to communicate new ideas; with bachelor’s and doctoral training so focused on fundamentals and care, there is space within Hillman Scholars to explore possibilities and new realities
Discuss the current state of innovation practice in nursing education
Center innovation in the School of Nursing through course design that explicitly brings innovation content and discussion to PhD students (Hillman Scholars + others)
-
Define potential end user groups based on the design challenge and initial assumptions.
Leverage brainstorming to define the following six potential user groups.
Interview and Select focus group participants:
UNC Hillman Scholars alumni
UPenn Hillman Scholars who have completed innovation immersion experiences
Current UNC Hillman Scholars
UNC Hillman Scholar faculty and staff
Hillman foundation staff
Clinician mentors
-
Submit required IRB request to engage in individual interviews and focus groups in a co-creation capacity
-
Conduct One-one-One and Focus Group sessions focused on 3 key areas:
What innovation in nursing research looks like
What previous opportunities to explore innovation have been offered to students in nursing programs
What we might add or change to better prepare PhD students to learn and practice innovation
Impact and Outcomes
Three themes emerged from Phase 1:
-
“What the heck is a PhD in nursing science?”
“The art and practice of nursing”
Does the use of the work “innovate” really apply? “I’m not a big fan of the word innovate, it is what we have always done we are always trying to make things better.”
“An innovation is just anything new, how do you put anything new into practice?”
Leverage “user or patient centered, fit to purpose, and optimized” language
From a student perspective, a hallmark of innovative work is a feeling of tension, “Innovation is doing something that you can imagine but don’t see, it regularly gets pushback, that can be a sign that you are on the right track.”
”A key takeaway from these discussions was on the value and necessity of tension - faculty view this as warning sign to be avoided, students see it as necessary part of innovation
-
Buy-in and engagement on the part of faculty members
Restriction of course schedules and PhD funding structures
Individual level of interest and availability to do “innovative” projects or research
-
Integration into existing course and program academic structure
Co-curricular activities and opportunities
Course design and development
Recommendations and Next Steps
-
Include both Hillman Scholars and other nursing PhD students, as well as faculty and staff from the Hillman program in the annual nursing faculty retreat.
Begin developing and testing strategies for bringing faculty along as we work to develop this program.
Develop interdisciplinary teams of nursing students and faculty to begin prototyping solutions in the fall of 2024 to pilot in courses in spring 2025.
-
Develop a formalized nursing innovation fellowship for students to engage with testing and implementation efforts.
Identify outcomes and team deliverables including a table detailing similarities and differences in approaches for problem solving like design thinking, implementation and improvement science, etc.