AMHERST — The University of Massachusetts is creating a program unlike any in the country that its experts believe has the potential to revolutionize engineering and nursing technology, backed by a new $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Engineers have been working for many years to advance technology for the nursing industry, spanning from medical device development to health care delivery and robotics. Through the new program, Strengthening Healthcare Innovation through Nursing and Engineering (SHINE), current UMass nursing and engineering students will collaborate to focus on ways to improve technology in health care.
According to Frank Sup, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass, SHINE has potential to be a model for institutions across the country working to development medical technology.
“It’s not uncommon for nurses and engineers here on campus to be collaborating but I talk to people outside and it is definitely something that’s new, different and exciting,” Sup said.
The program will run for five years through the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation (EMCNEI) at UMass. In partnership with Baystate Health, the program aims to tackle some of health care’s toughest technological challenges pertaining to patient care. Through the partnership, Baystate will host students to give them hands-on experience in its facilities.
Sup is the co-director of the EMCNEI alongside Karen Giuliano, a nursing professor at the UMass Institute for Applied Life Sciences and Elaine Marieb College of Nursing. The two will work together to recruit 28 nursing and engineering graduate students to join the program for the first cohort slated to launch in the fall semester of 2026.
“As nurses we touch more products and are a part of more services than any other health care professional, making us the ideal clinicians to address everyday problems in health care across every conceivable setting where care is delivered.” said Giuliano.
SHINE has four focal areas that build on the myriad of work the center has committed itself to, including: streamlining health care workflow to ensure continuous, quality patient care; leveraging automation and robotics; improving the safety and usability of intravenous (IV) infusion pumps and developing innovative health care products.
“The idea here is embedding nurses into that (engineering) design team and thinking about all the decisions that happen from the concept and problem statement, all the way through the development, evaluation and usability testing,” said Sup about SHINE. “It’s really about developing engineering-nursing graduate students and researchers that have a deeper understanding, not just of their field, but how the interplay between the devices and workflows are being designed.”
Acting as a part-time nurse scientist at Baystate, Giuliano works closely in health care by bridging the gap between nurses and engineers in UMass’ mechanical and industrial departments. Baystate nurses often provide feedback to her about products that work, don’t work and how they can be improved.
“Unlike engineers, historically nurses have not been empowered and encouraged to innovate. Most engineers, while tasked with innovation, often lack detailed knowledge of health care at the operational level. Thus, the ability to quickly and effectively develop and test health care innovations benefits enormously from combining nursing and engineering expertise,” Giuliano.
The EMCNEI at UMass was established in January 2021 after receiving a large donation from two graduates, Michael and Theresa Hluchyj. Since then, it has provided considerable research toward streamlining the safety and usability of IV systems, contributing to the development of IV Smart Pumps.
According to the center, IVs are among the most pervasive technologies in health care, used by about 90% of hospital patients. IVs have numerous and well-known safety and usability issues that have a negative impact on patient care.
Before IV smart pumps were available, all pump programming required nurses to manually calculate the rate of infusion which could result in an error. In contrast, IV smart pumps have reduced errors by implementing built-in drug libraries and error reduction systems but there is still work to do to improve the safety of IV infusion.
While the center mainly focuses on bringing together nursing and engineering researchers, many other fields are welcomed to contribute to the process.
“It’s a place for faculty across campus between engineering and nursing, but we also invite a lot of other disciplines as well to really think about how we focus on patient care, and how do we improve all the tools that can be available through engineering,” said Sup.
The core faculty program will include seven professors, not including Sup and Giuliano. The two see collaboration through a diverse range of departments and professors as the key to success for the center. They hope the next five years of work through the program will provide a model for other institutions nationwide.
“This unique nurse-engineer partnership not only drives practical solutions for health care challenges in western Massachusetts but also serves as a blueprint for health care innovation nationwide,” Giuliano said in a statement. “With its focus on usability, safety and patient-centered design, the partnership has the potential to shape national standards, accelerate the translation of innovation into practice, and improve outcomes for both patients and providers.”