Nurse Innovation Hackathons Our Nurse Innovation programming provides unique experiences for nurses to flex their innovation muscles and receive the support and motivation needed to bring their ideas to life and improve human health.

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Register for the NurseHack4Health Tech-A-Thon at HIMSS25!

Join the inaugural NurseHack4Health Tech-A-Thon, presented by SONSIEL, Johnson and Johnson, and Microsoft, on March 6, 2025. Break down silos and tackle healthcare's most pressing issues through technology and innovation methodologies!

Register now
Nursing Leaders Innovation and Design Futures Workshop at AONL 2025

Register today for a specialized program designed to equip and empower nursing leaders with the skills to proactively address the dynamic challenges of healthcare and anticipate future trends within their organizations. This preconference workshop is presented by Johnson & Johnson and SONSIEL.

Sign up here

What is NurseHack4Health?

NurseHack4Health is a community of nurses, healthcare professionals, developers, engineers, IT experts and other innovators focused on ideating and collaborating to address today’s most pressing healthcare challenges.

Through specialized programming, NurseHack4Health empowers participants with the skills and mindset needed to proactively address the dynamic challenges of healthcare. Our community began in 2019 with nurse Hackathons, weekend-long live and virtual events where individual nurses and teams envision and build solutions to real-world challenges.

Why Should You Attend Future NurseHack4Health Events?

Through our programming, nurses learn pragmatic ways to redefine complex healthcare issues, foster creative problem solving, prototype innovative solutions through human-AI collaboration, and integrate design methods into nursing practice and to develop a healthcare environment where nurses and patients thrive. 

Ready to start your innovation journey? You can receive up to 2 continuing education credits through the NurseHack4Health Innovation Academy! This three-session, asynchronous learning program offers workshops to power-up your innovation skills through design thinking, creating the perfect pitch, and AI solutions! Learn more and sign up now.

Stay tuned for future NurseHack4Health event announcements coming soon!

Visit the NurseHack4Health website to find out more

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Nurses Leading Innovation

Meet the 2024 NH4H awardees: Two nurse-led innovations transforming care and empowering the profession

Congratulations to the nurse-led teams from the Ghanaian-Diaspora Nursing Alliance and Seattle Children’s Hospital, the 2024 NurseHack4Health Pitch-A-Thon awardees! The two teams will receive a total of $185,500 in grant funding to bring their innovative solutions to life.

2024-11-11T16:47:26.591Z

Meet The Two 2024 Awardee Teams Here

How to Prepare

What to Expect

Hackathons champion nurse-led innovation by bringing nurses together with people from different professions, in-person or virtually, to “hack” real solutions to health problems in a supportive team setting with peers and mentors. Participants don’t need to come with an idea – just be ready to join a team, examine the problem and dive in to develop a solution. By the end of the hackathon, the goal is for teams to have minimum viable products (MVPs) that can be fast-tracked for further development and implementation in a healthcare setting.

Attending a hackathon is a great way to bond, brainstorm, develop and pitch healthcare solutions that will forever change the way you think about a problem, your perceived value and impact, and your vision for your future in nursing and healthcare!

Watch Our NurseHack4Health May 2020 Video
Innovation Skills

What does it take to make the most of a hackathon experience? Understanding fundamental innovation skills—such as problem solving, risk-taking, collaboration and strategic planning—can help you make the most of your time participating in a hackathon.

Even when you develop a valuable idea, sometimes figuring out what to do next can feel overwhelming.

Get started today and explore how to unlock your potential to spark innovative health solutions and improve patient care. Be sure to check out the section on Design Thinking for Health – a must-read before any hackathon! Learn more:

Skills Nurse Innovators Should Develop and Grow
What Makes a Good Pitch

Pitching your idea to a panel of judges is a critical part of the hackathon process. The judges are often well-respected industry experts who will examine how well your idea meets hackathon criteria, such as its viability or impact on human health.

Each team typically has three to five minutes to present to the judges and answer questions. Assembling a rock star team and developing a valuable idea are critical; however, sometimes teams fall short in making a compelling pitch. Learn more:

How to Tell Stories that Influence People and Inspire Action

NurseHack4Health Pitch Template

How to Win a Pitch
Open Source Innovation

Hackathons can have different goals, such as launching a start-up business or generating ideas for the open market to adopt. As a participant, it’s important to understand your responsibilities as well as the desired hackathon output.

“Open source” means that no one legally owns or has intellectual property associated with the ideas. People come together to hack for social good and ideas are publicly available to any individual or organization to quickly use or adapt to help solve problems. For NurseHack4Health, participants are asked to post their ideas on GitHub, a collaborative hosting platform where hackers can iterate collectively. Learn more:

What is Open Source

Open Source Resources

GitHub Learning Lab
Minimum Viable Product

The goal of many healthcare hackathons is for teams to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). A minimum viable product has just enough core features for the solution to be demonstrated or used. Developers then typically deploy the product to potential customers or early adopters who are more likely to give feedback and be able to grasp a product vision from an early prototype. The advantage of developing an MVP is to quickly get a working solution for a pressing problem into the healthcare setting. Learn more:

Forbes: What Is A Minimum Viable Product, And Why Do Companies Need Them?

LEANSTACK: What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

CleverTap: What Is A Minimum Viable Product + Methodologies For Marketers

Read More Stories About Nurses Leading Innovation

Nurses Leading Innovation

Small fixes to big wins: How this nursing innovation unit is transforming care

At Lehigh Valley Health Network, part of Jefferson Health, the nursing innovation unit started by tackling everyday frustrations, like moving printers and improving communication, and has since evolved into a powerhouse for workflow and care delivery transformation. Find out why the initiative started, what key structural supports make it successful, and how these nurse-led innovations are now scaling across the system.

2025-04-04T19:57:18.113Z
Nurses Leading Innovation

Building a culture of safety, from the boardroom to the bedside

The Safer Together initiative highlights the critical link between workforce safety and patient care. By fostering a culture of trust and collaboration, it empowers healthcare workers and improves safety for both patients and providers. Learn how the initiative focuses on creating an environment of shared responsibility where everyone plays a part in ensuring safety.

2025-04-04T19:57:10.588Z
Nurses Leading Innovation

Scaling success: Six steps for nurse-led care delivery transformation

A new toolkit from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement and supported by Johnson & Johnson Foundation provides actionable steps for nurse leaders to scale innovative care models that improve both patient outcomes and nurse satisfaction. Below, explore six steps for engaging frontline staff and building cross-disciplinary teams to foster sustainable and impactful change.

2025-02-05T17:54:52.369Z