Methods: Theoretical underpinnings of our approach to nurse-led invention include Jean Watson’s unitary science of human caring, emancipatory and feminist nursing theory, and frameworks for human-centered design thinking. Through a purposively-inclusive process of stakeholder (patient and family member, clinician, industry/community partner) engagement involving in-depth interviews, observation, and collection self-report measures, we identify opportunities for technological innovations with the potential to support cancer survivors’ own visions of what ‘health looks like’ for them. We then form teams of scientists and technologists with the expertise necessary to begin an iterative process of invention prototyping and evaluation involving novel tools from the basic and behavioral sciences, such as microfluidics, machine learning-driven algorithms, and nanotechnology.
Results: In this presentation we provide three empirically-based case examples illustrating our invention process in action. The first project is an NIH-funded pilot study of the use of computational eyeglasses to measure functional impacts of fatigue among breast cancer survivors. The purpose of this project was to render certain aspects of an otherwise invisible symptom visible and trackable through quantitative measures of eye function using a low-cost technology. This study was conducted in collaboration with computer engineers and neuroscientists. The second case example features a collaboration with chemical engineering to develop pregnancy test-like microfluidic devices that allow cancer survivors to determine when toxic byproducts of chemotherapy have cleared their systems and body fluids such as breast milk, semen, and vaginal fluid. The third and final case example illustrates early efforts to create ‘smart’ garments such as gloves, socks and underwear made of vibrating nanoparticle-coated textiles designed to palliate peripheral neuropathies.
Conclusion: Lessons learned from this work include challenges associated with navigating ethical aspects of research with partners from diverse disciplines and private industry groups, the importance of negotiating issues of intellectual property such as patents and data ownership up front and continuously throughout the project, and considerations for sustainability, scaling, and global collaboration. Through the use of clinical nursing knowledge and a theory-guided person-centered approach, nurse scientists can provide valuable leadership linking between patient-identified needs to teams of scientists from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in a position to invent solutions.