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Nurse innovator launches column about nurse-engineer partnerships to improve health care

, associate professor at the Institute for Applied Life Sciences and the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, along with Kelly Landsman, a nurse-biomedical engineer in Minneapolis, are writing a new column for the  (AJN) called Nurse Innovators. 

Karen Giuliano

Their first column, , was published this month. It introduces the series, which will explore nurse-engineer partnerships and how to replicate models of collaboration between the disciplines.

Giuliano is also co-director of the newly formed Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation, working closely with engineering co-director , associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering.

鈥淭he Center is designed to facilitate clinical, academic and industry collaborations to prepare nursing and engineering students to lead in health-care innovation,鈥 Giuliano says.

A longtime critical care nurse and medical device developer, Giuliano says nurses and engineers can work together to turn 鈥渨ork-arounds鈥 that nurses often create into innovations that improve patient care and the nursing workplace.

鈥淓mpowering nurses to become innovators, forming nurse-engineer partnerships, creating a path for engineers to enter nursing, and encouraging nurses to be trained in engineering are all strategies that can help create the infrastructure needed for meaningful health care innovation,鈥 the authors write.

Giuliano and Landsman discuss the new column in an .