| Danial Norjidi |
INNOVATIVE practices in nursing have been shown to improve both patient outcomes and job satisfaction among nurses, and as such nurses should strive towards generating innovative ideas and working with academics to realise them.
This was highlighted by Professor Dr Munikumar R Venkatasalu, a Professor in Cancer and Palliative Care at the Pengiran Anak Puteri Rashidah Sa’adatul Bolkiah Institute of Health Sciences (PAPRSB IHS), Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), during his lecture, ‘Innovations in Nursing Practice: Possibilities and Pitfalls’, which he recently delivered at the university in conjunction with International Nurses Day.
Speaking in an interview with the Bulletin after the lecture, Dr Munikumar said of the current state of nursing in the country, “I think we are in a big transition phase. UBD has a very strong desire to increase research and innovation from academics. We are able to see the seeds and plants now, and very soon we can see the fruits of nursing innovation in this country.”
“Our curriculum is matched with the international curriculum. One thing in particular is that research and innovation is a core in nursing education,” he said, adding that this has developed beyond even some UK universities. “For example, out of 67 nursing universities in the UK, only three or four are running research projects within the undergraduate curriculum, but Brunei has empirical research projects ongoing in its nursing curriculum. So that is going to have a huge change. We just started empirical research. In the past they would only do systematic reviews or paper-based work. Now they’re doing action-research, in the field. So things are changing.”
Dr Munikumar said that he feels that, among the nurses and nursing students he has met, the characteristics required to be innovative and want to be innovative are there.
Professor Dr Munikumar R Venkatasalu from the Pengiran Anak Puteri Rashidah Sa’adatul Bolkiah Institute of Health Sciences (PAPRSB IHS), Universiti Brunei Darussalam delivering his talk. – DANIAL NORJIDI
“I’ve observed the clinical areas of Brunei, and people there are ready for opportunities. They have ideas; they’re looking for opportunities and avenues. They have ideas and now they’re waiting for academics to join with them to create and realise these ideas. So I don’t see any problem with their attitudes.”
“Every little effort helps. They’ve got the ideas and they need to know how to voice them out and come forward,” he said, urging nurses to work with academics to realise their ideas.
Speaking further on the topic of his lecture in the interview, he said, “Innovation is very popular in engineering and other studies, but innovation in nursing is still a very new concept, because still many think of the debate about nursing being an art or a science.”
“The innovative practices can be directly related to job satisfaction among nurses as well as patient outcomes,” he continued, highlighted that international studies have shown that “when the patients are happier with your innovation, that directly impacts on your job satisfaction.”
“The nursing actions most commonly go invisible. Now it is a time for us to quantify what the invisibility is to the visible outcomes, then you can say nursing is a science and that your innovation works.
“When there is a challenge we need to turn the challenge into opportunities. Now there is a challenge – how nurses can contribute. Now we should be awake as nurses and try to go with the mainstream on how nurses can contribute.”
“It’s a big opportunity. As nurses we can do that. Every day you can do innovations in the way you treat patients and make it a project,” he added.
In the public lecture itself, Dr Munikumar spoke on the concept of innovation in nursing practice, touching on opportunities for innovations in everyday nursing practice, sharing some examples of such innovations and the impact they have had on quality of care.
He highlighted that for nursing to take its “rightful place” in the development of health knowledge, nurses need to be further engaged and encouraged to pursue innovative and cutting edge research that challenge prior assumptions and that present new, intellectually challenging perspectives.
Dr Munikumar also called on nurses to be innovative by being open to experience new devices that advance patient care, new tools that measure patient care outcomes and to experiment with new service designs such as nurse-led clinics.
Such innovations, he affirmed, are pivotal in today’s changing and challenging healthcare arena as, globally, innovations in nursing have proved to improve patient satisfaction rates, quality care, service improvements and cost effectiveness while also helping job satisfaction and an enhanced professional identity for nurses.
Dr Munikumar went on to stress that nursing innovations cannot occur without organisational support, and asserted the need to develop a centre for nursing innovations and nursing research labs.
He also said there was a need to develop prototypes of nursing innovation for participation in national competitions such as the Crown Prince Creative, Innovative Product and Technological Advancement (CIPTA) Award.
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