Around the country, makerspaces are popping up in collaborative hot spots like universities and community centers, making innovation and invention more accessible. It’s part of a growing, broader maker culture, which brings a DIY, democratized attitude to disciplines like engineering, coding, robotics, hardware development and more. And it’s a perfect environment to foster nurse-led innovation and direct it toward actionable solutions for the health workforce crisis.

Anna Young, the co-founder and CEO of MakerHealth, is bringing makerspaces into hospitals and putting technology and fabrication capabilities directly in the hands of frontline teams, such as those at UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids, led by Nursing Research & Innovation Coordinator Rose Hedges, DNP, RN.

In helping clinicians of all stripes bring their ideas to life, the maker culture equips nurses to be the holders of solutions and brings greater personalization to devices that improve lives. In Part II of this episode, Anna and Rose talk about how to make an “all ideas welcome” culture accessible for nurses, the need for visionary partners who elevate the skills and ingenuity of nurses, and how the moment to invest and empower nurses to drive projects is now.

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Guests 

• Anna Young, Co-Founder & CEO MakerHealth
• Rose Hedges, DNP, RN
  

Episode Resources

• What is a Makerspace?
• MakerNurse
• MakerHealth
• generate @ UnityPoint Health
• How Can Maker Culture Help The Health Care Industry?
• Why Microsoft Measures Employee Thriving, Not Engagement
• Talking About Burnout Is Still Taboo at Work
• Why Leaders Can’t Ignore the Human Energy Crisis
• The Cost of Nurse Turnover in 23 Numbers
• MakerHealth - Create
• Nursing Careers in Health Making: How healthcare leaders can energize and retain their creative workforce
• How Makers are 'Hacking into Hospital Supply Closets' | Health | WIRED
• A Maker Revolution in Health Care | TEDMED
• A History of Nurse Making and Stealth Innovation
• Improvised Equipment in the Home Care of the Sick | JAMA Network (1933)
• Nation's First Medical Makerspace Opens in Texas
• Jose Gomez-Marquez Wants to Turn Every Doctor and Nurse into a Maker
• Nurses devise their own innovations | Modern Healthcare
• The medical right to repair: the right to save lives - The Lancet
• Hospital technicians renew urgent call for Right to Repair medical equipment - PIRG
• Do-It-Yourself Health: How the Maker Movement is Innovating Health Care