Nursing Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Healthcare
Summary
Nursing entrepreneurship and innovation encompass the development and implementation of novel products, services and care pathways by nurses acting as change agents within healthcare systems. This field spans independent ventures, collaborative start-ups and in-service innovation aimed at improving patient outcomes, enhancing care delivery and addressing workforce challenges. Core drivers include digital transformation, rising chronic disease burdens and the demand for cost-effective, patient-centred models. Nurses’ clinical insight, combined with leadership, management and business skills, fosters solutions such as telehealth platforms, community outreach enterprises and social enterprises targeting health inequities. Educational programmes, organisational support and policy frameworks are essential to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, empowering nurses to translate ideas into sustainable impact across diverse settings worldwide.
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Nursing Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Healthcare publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in nursing entrepreneurship and innovation in healthcare across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Intrapreneurship: Entrepreneurial activity undertaken by staff within existing healthcare organisations to develop new services, processes or products.
Social entrepreneurship: Ventures led by nurses or teams that prioritise social value and community health outcomes over profit objectives.
Business intelligence systems: Integrated software tools for collecting, analysing and presenting operational and clinical data to inform decision-making and efficiency improvements.
Entrepreneurial empowerment: The process of equipping individuals with the knowledge, confidence and skills required to identify opportunities and realise innovative solutions in healthcare.
References
- Healthcare entrepreneurship: current trends and future directions. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research (2024).
- Effects of 3S business intelligence systems for nursing students: a repeated-measures randomized control trial. BMC Nursing (2024).
- Enabling Entrepreneurial Empowerment Through a Three-Day Entrepreneurship Camp. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy (2022).
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