By Morayo Ogunbayo

Nurses touch every facet of the health care industry and are often the first to implement new technologies hospitals employ. Despite this, nurses can be left out of the decision-making process when it comes to new ideas.

Some nurses are working to change this with their own inventions using their diverse skill sets. This type of innovation was on display last week during the Nurse Innovators Pavilion at the HLTH Conference, where keynote speakers share the future of technology with health care workers and companies from around the world.

Participants in the Nurse Innovators Pavilion said they hope to revolutionize their profession from the inside, pitching their young companies to some of the biggest names in health care.

RX for Growth

Founded by longtime Ontario-based nurse Jenn Johnson, RX for Growth creates care planners and other healing journals for nurses dealing with the stress of their jobs. Johnson’s idea for the company came after hitting burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic.

RX for Growth’s goal isto prevent burnout by implementing “proactive strategies that promote work-life balance, resilience, and continuous professional development” through its journals, as it says on its website.

SafeSeizure

Nurses Joey Ferry and Taofiki Gafar-Schaner learned that seizure patients were at higher risk for injuries in hospitals, and noticed there were no standards for padding needed for their patients. SafeSeizure, a company that makes inflatable pads that can be easily attached to hospital beds and prevent injuries, was born.

On their website, Ferry and Garar-Schaner say their goal is to “continue to foster change that will improve health care workflow and patient care.”

Rescue RN

Dr. Susan B. Davis created Rescue RN after finding that some health care system responses to cardiac arrests were " inconsistent and subpar,”.

Her company, and its signature program CodePRep, is attempting to create “standardized and reproducible high-quality performance drills” for health care workers.

NurseBrain Synapse

Samu Mhlambi created NurseBrain Synapse to be a second brain for nurses, through an app that automates charting and organizes all patient info into one convenient place.

Using AI for automation purposes, the app is designed to reduce burnout by decreasing the amount of time nurses must spend in front of the computer.

Advocates for Nurses

Advocates for Nurses was created by Maggie Ortiz, with the mission of ensuring “nurses receive education, guidance, and advocacy as it pertains to due process,”.

Her company offers health care consulting, coaching and documentation mastering to fellow nurses, hoping to give them the knowledge they need to increase their power within their profession.