Welcome to the co-creation
Touch, Technology and Polarity Optimization: Using Nurse-Engineer Partnerships to Promote the Virtuous Cycle
Nurses and engineers share the goal of achieving care excellence, but significant barriers in education, work environments, societal expectations and mental models exist. The history of modern healthcare has been shaped by technology. While nurses and engineers each have the greater purpose of achieving care excellence, their relationship with technology has differed. In engineering, technology has enabled medical cures and care delivery efficiencies. In nursing, technology has made caring work visible while complicating and intensifying the physical delivery of care. These competing needs, touch and tech, in the delivery of healthcare are in dynamic tension. Co-creation of a polarity map® serves as a starting point in system transformation by providing a means to translate events into patterns, then structures, and finally shared mental models. This poster features a complete tech and touch polarity map® created by a nurse engineer. It further suggests a method for co-creation of such a polarity map® to translate our conversations into action. Finally, the poster invites nurse-engineer partnerships to explore use of the polarity map® to promote virtuous cycles that harness technology and touch optimally in real-time care delivery to achieve care excellence.
5: Polarity Map Credit: Johnson, B. (1996) Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. [HRD Press].