Nursing & Engineering Innovations Center Launches at UConn

The University of Connecticut’s Nursing and Engineering Innovation Center, one of the first of its kind in the nation, will advance health care, workforce, and economic development through interdisciplinary collaborations, positioning Connecticut to be a global leader in health care technology innovation, school officials predict.

UConn’s Schools of Nursing and Engineering believe the groundbreaking combination of disciplines will lead to fresh ideas and inventions that will directly impact patients’ lives in a positive way.

The purpose of the Nursing and Engineering Innovation Center, according to UConn officials, is to foster and advance healthcare, workforce, and economic development through interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships between nursing and engineering to promote the ideation, creation, and commercialization of new evidence-based healthcare technologies that address clinical unmet needs for the betterment of healthcare quality.

The four focal areas of the new Center are research, education, community engagement, and technology transfer.

The connections will unfold as the new Center evolves.  Nurses interact with patients daily and see where there are gaps in care. Nurses are also taught to be problem solvers, adapting as necessary to fix unique health issues. Engineers are technically trained and up-to-date on the latest technology. Engineers typically also thrive in creating new devices to improve the quality-of-life for end users.  What happens when you combine the two professions together? UConn aims to find out.

The Center is under the co-direction of Tiffany Kelley, Ph.D., MBA, RN-BC, Visiting Professor and Director of the School of Nursing’s Healthcare Innovation Online Graduate Certificate Program and Leila Daneshmandi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in Residence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Director of the entrepreneurship Hub (eHub) in the School of Engineering.

“Engineers are trained to solve problems and create solutions. They have the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities to actualize new technologies,” Daneshmandi explains. “By partnering with nurses and health care professionals, who have deep contextual knowledge of on-site problems and needs, we can ensure that our innovations are user-centric and designed for unmet health care needs.”

In its initial phase, the Center includes the creation of joint educational programs for students and seed grants for collaborative research among faculty. 

The deans of the two Schools, who will oversee the Innovation Center throughout its development with assistance from an Advisory Board, expect this first phase to take two to three years. The goal of the second phase is to create a shared state-of-the-art research and teaching facility, which will require major University, state, federal, or donor investment. 

“We are joining forces to not only support our research activities, but to also expand student learning and have a greater impact on patients and employers across Connecticut,” says former School of Nursing Dean Deborah Chyun.

“The School of Engineering has strong connections in health care, especially through our Biomedical Engineering Department operated with UConn Health,” says Engineering Dean Kazem Kazerounian. “With this new Innovation Center, however, we’re investing in patient-focused care at the hands of the talented nurse workforce.”

There are numerous benefits to the initiative.  Not only could prototypes be field-tested, but it would also further integrate established undergraduate- and graduate-level programs at the two Schools, helping to meet the increasing demand for workers in both fields. 

The two Schools have collaboration in their past as well as their present. Researchers affiliated with the School of Nursing’s Center for Advancement in Managing Pain belong to both Schools and are actively involved in shared training and research activities. Several interdisciplinary teams have also submitted grant applications for collaborative projects.

“The Nursing and Engineering Innovation Center is a natural progression of ongoing collaborations that have been ongoing for the last several years” Kelley says. “We are excited to see how it will enhance our research and educational programs, help meet the demand for our graduates in the workforce, and provide better care for patients. It is amazing what we can do with a little seed funding, enthusiasm, and determination.”