Innovation: Innovation is the act of coming up with ideas and successfully bringing them to life to solve problems and create opportunities. Innovation isn’t something you do after you get your work done. It’s how you do your work. (Robert Tucker)

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)

This issue of Heart & Science reflects on innovative disruptions; those processes and technologies that offer new solutions to old problems. Transforming the experience of our health care system is not about working harder or faster; it is about working smarter to shape the future of care. The future needs our best and most creative thinking and solutions. For example:

Using technology, like Google Glass, in new and different ways so a mother can see her sick baby sooner, for the first time, decreasing distress and promoting a strong maternal bond;

Huddling and advancing patient discharges before noon to promote “pulling” our patients to inpatient beds earlier and avoiding patients leaving our Emergency Department without being seen;

Setting our collective intentions as the nurses on Tower 14CD do when they care for patients and families, themselves and each other, transforming the experience for all;

Supporting the care of our stroke patients by our OR scrub nurses as the interventional call team arrives, and by their presence, preventing the irreversible damage caused by the enemy of time;

Our colleagues who have stepped up to be our Partners eCare super users and will help us transform the way we advance the health of our patients and communities through access to real-time information.

Too often, we focus on problems and become overwhelmed or cynical. 2015 is our tipping point year to take our place in leading innovative change. I witness the amazing talent within and across our BWH family every day. I believe more than ever that innovation—the ways to do something differently that has an impact—lies within each and every one of you.

Please use your voice to identify opportunities to create safer systems and better care experiences for all and couple it with your creativity to help us innovate! This is the time.

Warm Regards,

Jackie Somerville, PhD, RN
Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services