See You Now Podcast

Vaccines and vaccination—they’ve become one of the hottest topics of public discourse. Indeed, the Oxford Languages 2021 Word of the Year is Vax. As their pun-filled news release notes, "more than any other word, 'vax' has injected itself into the bloodstream of the English language in 2021.” With regulatory approval of a COVID vaccine for kids ages 5-11, COVID boosters for adults 65 and older and those at a higher risk for COVID, and the World Health Organization recommending widespread use of a long-awaited malaria vaccine for children, there is much vaccine progress and science to celebrate and understand.

Hackathons provide a fast-paced, high energy, community-building opportunity for a wide spectrum of participants to flex their innovation muscles and solve for some of today’s greatest challenges. While these events have traditionally been geared towards computer scientists and software developers, in recent years nurses, clinicians, and health innovators have started to convene health-challenge inspired events. Today the health hackathon landscape is exciting, rapidly evolving, and nurses are playing a lead role in driving them. In this episode, we learn from health influencers, hackers, and innovators Jane Sarashon-Kahn, MA, MHSA; Chris Recinos, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, NEA-BC; Anthony Scarpone-Lambert, BSN ‘21; and Jennifferre Mancillas, BSN, RN, RNC-NIC about how hackathons have impacted their thinking, skills, lives, career trajectory, as well as the landscape of innovative health solutions and products. And -- why you should register your interest at NurseHack4Health.org.

People newly diagnosed and living with chronic conditions increasingly turn to technology, the internet and social media seeking information and education, to share clinical information and the latest research, to receive and provide support, and to share solutions and resources. In the spirit of “meeting people where they are,” clinicians are following and joining patients in these social spaces, learning a lot -- and together -- are improving health.

Maria Striemer, RN, BA, was in the emergency department when she treated a child accidentally left in a car from heat exhaustion. Unable to leave the experience behind, Maria began a journey that was anything but routine. She and her engineer husband worked to develop Backseet Buddy, a sensor that uses a Bluetooth connected app to detect when a phone has moved more than 50 meters from a car seat and sends a phone alert.

Necessity is often cited as the Mother of Invention. And, nurses who have been part of the inventing process share that exasperation, empathy, and determination are members of the same family. While caring for a patient in an interventional radiology lab and witnessing the exasperation on a patient’s face while struggling to secure a fluid-filled leg bag, nurse and inventor Brian Mohika, RN, BSN, was inspired to create smart, active-living underwear designed to secure catheters and fluid collection bags. He knew people needed solutions that were practical, comfortable, washable, discreet, and liberating. Brian stated, “it is about more than just selling a medical product. It’s about improving lives and returning people to actively living theirs.”

In this episode, as part of the growing Civic Health movement and its nationwide effort to expand and normalize healthcare settings as community touchpoints for voter access and engagement, we’re taking a closer listen to the experiences and insights of three civic health innovators who provide compelling evidence and data for why healthcare settings and healthcare professionals are particularly effective messengers and catalysts for voter engagement. Together, they have collectively created and built NursesWhoVote, Democracy at Discharge, Vot-ER, and the Healthy Democracy Kit.

As we wrap up Season 5 and roll into our summer break, we’re catching our breath from a busy few months exploring, celebrating, and innovating that included elevating National Nurses Month, issuing a call to action for nurses around the world to join the NurseHack4Health, getting an update on the global Nursing Now Campaign as it transitions to the Nursing Now Challenge, introducing a special series Meeting of Minds, and having three SEE YOU NOW episodes selected as finalists in the ShareCare Awards that recognize best-in-class productions promoting well-being and capturing the spirit of "sharing care."

In this special edition of SEE YOU NOW, we’re honoring our very first national Juneteenth holiday. As a podcast focused on how nurse-led innovation is strengthening our healthcare systems and transforming lives, we’re marking this historic moment with a health equity playlist to amplify and elevate the scholarship, innovation, leadership, and contributions of Black nurses toward building healthier communities, families, and experiences.

Issac Asimov believed robots could have a true humanizing influence, and one day do the work to make life easier, freeing us to do the work that makes life worthwhile. For many nurses, caring for patients is that worthwhile work. However, studies have shown that roughly 30 percent of a nursing shift is devoted to patient care, with the rest given over to other tasks like finding medications, tracking down equipment, tracking down supplies, and documentation.

The health of our planet is in serious condition. Climate change is anticipated to result in increasingly warmer global temperatures, more extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. Without accelerated intervention and broad scale innovation across all economic sectors, we face devastating effects on global water and food supplies, critical infrastructure and supply chains, physical and mental health, and a less certain future. Understanding the impacts of climate change on human health is vitally important for the global population.