Nurses on the Frontlines of Care and Innovation
By Tyler Weingart, September 29, 2015
If you’ve ever been a patient in a hospital or visited someone who was, you probably remember the nurse. Why? Because that nurse was there at the bedside day in and day out, making sure you or your loved one was comfortable and being taken care of.
Because nurses are so close to the patient they tend to quickly spot when something can be improved–whether that’s cutting down IV shields to make them more comfortable for patients, or adapting breathing tubes to fit preemies.
To bring more of these ideas to life, MakerNurse and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston recently unveiled The MakerHealth™ Space at UTMB, the first makerspace in the country for health care providers. Stocked with tools ranging from pliers and sewing needles to 3D printers and laser cutters, this dedicated space on a patient ward in UTMB’s John Sealy hospital will empower nurses and other medical staff to ‘make’ devices in real time and spread their innovations throughout the health care system.
Whether it’s prototyping a new tool or upgrading an existing hospital device, ‘maker nurses’ are bringing innovation to patient care in more unique and cost-efficient ways than ever before!
Learn more about the MakerNurse project and how it is bringing the do-it-yourself mindset to health care.
