Nursing and engineering. What’s the connection?

Nursing and engineering. What’s the connection? And why is collaboration between these two leading higher education programs essential to our future health care workforce landscape?

This is a hot topic of discussion here at Arizona State University as we launch ASU Health and the School of Medicine and Medical Engineering. The school integrates clinical medicine, biomedical science and engineering in a new approach to what a medical school looks like. Clinical partnerships will support both research and academic programs, delivering solutions that improve patient and health care outcomes.

Of course, this level of advancement requires us to examine how digital health technology is changing the way health care is provided, and not just at the bedside. It also has the potential to impact everything in the health arena, from research and education to clinical care and patient communication. As such, the roles of nursing and health professionals will continue to evolve. This necessitates new approaches to building alliances, advancing clinical partnerships and evolving curricula. Enter the engineering connection.

Advancements in artificial intelligence and precision medicine require an integration of engineering concepts into nursing education. AI is literally changing the delivery of health care, and to continue meeting workforce needs, we need to understand the correlations and create dynamic approaches to build new concepts and practices into what we teach. By merging the knowledge and skills of nursing and engineering, new and creative health care solutions can be developed to improve patient outcomes and safety. What does this look like in practice?

Nurses need to be at the table from day one and be there as equal stakeholders in the development and integration of engineering concepts that will benefit patient care. We need to be involved with developing medical device specs, assistive technologies and intelligent systems. As educators, we need to further integrate biomedical engineering principles into nursing curricula.

Through effective collaboration, nursing and engineering can leverage their respective expertise to drive innovation. By embracing interdisciplinary approaches, we prepare future professionals to address complex challenges in the ever-evolving health care landscape.