Notes on Nursing—April 2021 Issue

Most people don’t think about catheters—until they need to live with one. Brian Mohika, RN, BSN, is a nurse inventor and entrepreneur on a mission to inspire others with his innovative medical underwear that’s helping to improve health outcomes and quality of life for patients who need catheters.

Nurses have been innovators, creators and designers from the earliest days of the profession—and the last 16 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have continually reaffirmed that reality. Hackathons—short, immersive events where people with diverse skill sets collaborate to solve a problem—have been a popular tool, particularly in the software development space, for over 20 years, but hackathons focused on nursing are still relatively new to the scene. Why, you ask, would nurses want to participate in a hackathon? It’s simple. Nurses are in virtually every corner of every community; they are natural problem-solvers with unique insights in healthcare—they see opportunities to improve patient outcomes and improve healthcare that are seemingly invisible to others. But in many cases, there is not a clear path for nurses to raise, develop and build out their ideas. Nurse-focused hackathons have played vital roles not just in elevating nurse-led ideas, but also in strengthening the nurses’ identity as innovators and leaders, in their own eyes and beyond.

Nurses are uniquely positioned to identify areas in healthcare delivery that can be improved to lessen the industry’s impact on the planet. Explore a free CE module from the Johnson & Johnson Institute to learn how, as nurses, you can lead solutions for environmental sustainability and stewardship