Informatics

Nurses Own Innovation at Second Annual NursePitch Competition

Five people stand and smile for a group photo. They're all wearing light blue t-shirts that say AMPAworks with a brain-shaped graphic.

HIMSS, the American Nurses Association Enterprise and BD have come together again as innovation leaders in making the second annual NursePitch™ a success, with first place awarded to AMPAworks, a team offering solutions for real-time inventory tracking and management.

NursePitch is a Pre-Seed and Series A competition, and it is one of many activities putting the nurse at the center of product creation and contributing to a culture of nursing innovation.

The annual interactive event features nurses from around the world who compete for the chance to pitch their products and ideas. Finalists exhibit their products to a team of highly respected judges who represent health innovation, business, provider and venture capital companies. This year’s NursePitch was hosted virtually.

Nurse-led innovation is a priority for HIMSS and ANA. HIMSS has developed the foundation for an engaged Nursing Informatics Community. ANA collaborates with key partners and has established a three-part innovation framework to develop skills and build a culture of innovation.

HIMSS and ANA have long history of supporting nurses as innovators, through collaboration with the Alliance for Nursing Informatics, the ANA’s Nursing Informatics Scope and Standards of Practice and HIMSS’s thought leadership contributions on digital health to the nursing profession.

2020 NursePitch Winner AMPAworks: A computer vision deep learning IoT system to track and manage hospital inventory. The average hospital spends about $10 million annually on supply chain waste from labor hours that go towards hand-counting and replenishing inventory.

“As we’ve seen with the new HIMSS CISOM (Clinically Integrated Supply Outcomes Model), we must mobilize data to create real world evidence of impact and outcomes for patient populations,” said Christel Anderson, MA Vice President Informatics. “Innovation such as AMPAworks can help track processes and products used in care interventions to improve system performance.”

Second place was awarded to Edgility, which aims to bring situational-awareness and workflow orchestration to healthcare organizations, and third place went to goNurse, a connected health and telehealth custom-built application.

2020 NursePitch judges include:

  • Dana Alexander, MSN, MBA, RN, FAAN, FHIMSS, Principal & Founder, FORERUNNER, LLC
  • Oriana Beaudet, DNP, RN, PHN, Vice President of Nursing Innovation, ANA
  • Paul Coyne, DNP, MBA, MS, RN, AGPCNP-BC, Co-Founder & President, Inspiren
  • Parth Desai, MS, MPH, MBA, Principal, Flare Capital
  • Callie Patel, Director, Innovation Consulting, Healthbox
  • Joyce Sensmeier, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN, Senior Advisor, Informatics, HIMSS
  • Vicky Tiase, MSN, RN-BC, Program Director, The Value Institute, New York Presbyterian

ANA and HIMSS will be developing multiyear programming that is designed to increase the voice, opportunity and visibility of the nursing audience in the digital health ecosystem by holding nurse led and nurse developed innovation. Join ANA and HIMSS on this journey at the Accelerate Health - Nursing virtual program on Nov. 18, 2020.

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