While this is a big deal for health professionals, the American public should be even more alarmed as evidence supports the claim that as clinician burnout rates increase, patient safety decreases (Welp, Meier, & Manser, 2014). Burnout and job satisfaction are inversely related; as burnout increases, job satisfaction decreases (Khamisa, Oldenburg, Peltzer, & Ilic, 2015). Multiple studies have shown that interprofessional collaboration improves job satisfaction scores in healthcare professionals of different backgrounds (Bardas, S. L., Cheng, Y., Durando, M. K., & Schmidt, A. C., 2012; Ma, Shang, & Bott, 2016; Manojlovich, 2005; Marmo, S., & Berkman, C., 2018; Zhang, Huang, Liu, Yan, and Li, 2016). From what is known about the impact of increased provider burnout rates leading to decreased patient safety (Welp, Meier, & Manser, 2014), it is clear how interprofessional collaboration can lead to improved patient outcomes.
With burnout rates on the rise (Shanafelt et al., 2015), solutions must be developed to increase provider satisfaction and reduce burnout rates throughout healthcare. One such solution, the Box* (actually name replaced to remove references to abstract title), is a novel method to engage health care providers, reduce provider burnout rates and improve job satisfaction scores. The Box is a moveable makerspace and idea incubator that travels from location to location to promote interprofessional collaboration in the creation of products, services, and solutions that improve the health and well-being of the world. At the end of each tour stop, interprofessional teams present their innovations to a panel of professionals from across campus and ask for funding and resources to continue with their work.
To be eligible for funding from the Box, teams must be made up of (1) university students, faculty, and/or staff from (2) at least two different professional backgrounds and (3) disclose their innovation to the university’s technology transfer office if they hold a faculty or staff position. To date, every team that has met these criteria and pitched their innovation received their first round of funding from the Box. This model is supported by evidence indicating that the greatest return of investment (ROI) for innovation is indicated by the organization’s ideation rate, which is equal to the number of ideas approved by leadership divided by the aggregate number of engaged users in the organization (Minor, Brook, & Bernoff, 2017). The more teams that are supported by the box, the greater the ROI for the university.
The physical design of the Box is a 16’ x 18’ space made from a combination of Plexiglas walls and foam board panels. Housed inside the studio is an array of tools ranging from hand tools to 3d printers, to computing hardware and a laser cutter. But the most important piece of technology in the Box are the people who interact within. The Box is operated by the university’s College of Nursing and makes tour stops at different colleges for half a semester to widen its reach and impact. With custom made carts that transport the wall panels, and every other piece of equipment sitting on wheels, the Box can be deconstructed, loaded into a truck, transported across campus and set up at a new location in under two and half hours.
Once teams obtain support from the Box, they are encouraged to complete agreed upon milestones and return to subsequent showcases to request additional rounds of funding. In its first year of existence, the Box made tour stops at the cancer hospital, and the colleges of nursing, design and engineering. It provided $55,200 in funding awarded to 62 interprofessional teams, made up of 216 students and/or professionals. Of those 62 teams, 16 teams return for their second pitch, three for their third, and one team has pitched their innovation four times and received four rounds of support.
What’s most interesting about the Box is that although over $55,000 has been awarded to these interprofessional teams, only around $20,000 of that funding has been utilized. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. The Box’s unique space and model provide interprofessional teams with the two things they need most to achieve their goals: (1) the permission to innovate and (2) the validation that their ideas are worth perusing. Once these principles are provided, the teams are more likely to utilize less capital, and engage with mentors and the Box’s readily available tools to achieve their goals.
The Box is a novel approach to enhance professional well-being, implement the AACN Healthy Work Environment Standards, optimize patient outcomes promoting interprofessional collaborations and strengthen healthy work environments.