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Harnessing innovations from Nursing and Engineering to promote change in health and healthcare delivery

Join us on September 13 for the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation’s first Annual Symposium!

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About

Nurses and Engineers are Innovators

Our innovative Nurse-Engineer Approach leverages real-time collaborations to identify today’s healthcare problems and iterate on potential solutions that will lead to valuable advancements in patient care, nursing practice, and medical product development.

Together we strive to:

  • Unleash the untapped potential of nurses and engineers working together as healthcare innovation leaders
  • Foster the ability for rapid, effective application of nursing and engineering skill sets to identify issues and realize innovative solutions
  • Pioneer healthcare innovation through the intersection of nursing, engineering, and research

Our Mission

Nurses and Engineers are remarkably similar. Both are trained problem solvers and both rely on innovation to find solutions. Despite these similarities, their paths rarely cross and the timeframes required for them to find solutions are dramatically different.  

Unlike engineers, most nurses are not empowered to innovate and most do not see themselves as having the ability, the support, or the power to do so.? Most engineers, while tasked with innovation, are not generally familiar with, nor do they participate in, healthcare at the operational level.  

But what possibilities exist when engineers partner in real-time with nurses to tackle everyday health care challenges – with each discipline bringing forth their own perspectives and expertise? 

Our History

The development of the Center provides an incredible opportunity for students, staff, and corporate partners. The emerging Product Prototyping Laboratory on the Amherst campus will enable students to design and prototype new products, while the proposed Usability Laboratory on the Mount Ida campus will allow for product and service testing by frontline clinical end-users.

Founded in January 2021, the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation was formed using seed funding provided by Michael and Theresa Hluchy and soon expanded thanks to a second major donation from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation.

Message from the Co-Directors

“Today, healthcare technologies are too often made without the insights and understanding that clinicians bring to the table. Nurses are end-users, facing healthcare challenges on the frontlines of patient care. Engineers have the expertise and skills to envision and create medical devices and can work with nurses who bring the real-world healthcare experience needed to design the best possible products and solutions. This transformation depends heavily on collaborative research and development work among nursing, engineering, and other disciplines. The ability to quickly and effectively develop and test innovations requires both nursing and engineering skill sets. The power of the nurse-engineer approach is derived from the mutual collaboration between the two, where the nurse identifies the problem, and the engineer facilitates potential solutions.” 

— Karen Giuliano & Frank Sup

co-Directors Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation