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Nursing teams leading transformation: Mayo Clinic forums ignite ideas and innovation
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When nursing teams lead, healthcare moves forward.
This theme came to life at two recent Mayo Clinic events focused on driving nursing innovation: Nursing Nexus on Sept. 25–26 in Rochester, Minnesota, and the Nursing Transformation Conference on Sept. 29–30 in Bloomington, Minnesota. Together, these forums created space for nursing staff to connect, ideate and reimagine the future of healthcare.
Nursing Nexus: Staff voices powering change
Mayo Clinic's second annual Nursing Nexus event, "Connecting Staff Voices to Transform Healthcare," brought together staff in nine different roles from across the Department of Nursing to generate and discuss ideas for using artificial intelligence (AI), automation and other technologies to solve real-world challenges.
The event centered on four themes:
- Driving future-forward innovation and transformation.
- Redefining the care team of 2030 and beyond.
- Combining human connection and technology to sustain compassion in care delivery.
- Building the skills and capacity to lead change.
Participants gathered to learn about emerging technologies and to brainstorm through ideation sessions and group discussions about solving issues in day-to-day patient care. The result: more than 200 tangible ideas for assessment and possible development at Mayo Clinic.
Several concepts explored at last year's Nursing Nexus have already moved into practice, including Nurse Virtual Assistant.
"At these events, and in any room where a nurse is present, the energy makes it clear: When nurses lead, healthcare moves forward," says Ryannon Frederick, chief nursing officer of Mayo Clinic.
She emphasized that the voice of staff is vital at every stage, from idea to implementation.
Nursing Transformation Conference: From insight to impact
The Nursing Transformation Conference, which was titled "From Insight to Impact: Nurses Shaping the Future," expanded the conversation to a national scale. Held in person and streamed virtually, the conference highlighted how nurses are not just implementers of change, but drivers of innovation across care models, informatics and workforce design.
Keynote speakers were Oriana Beaudet, vice president of innovation for the American Nurses Association Enterprise; Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic's chief AI implementation officer; and Frederick.
Frederick emphasized three core principles to ignite and sustain transformation:
- Disruptive thinking — challenging assumptions and creating solutions that are fundamentally better, not just incremental improvements.
- Engineering desirability — designing changes that people want to adopt, making the easiest choice also the right one.
- Sustaining influence — reinforcing innovation through systems such as behaviors, storytelling and champions.
The overarching message was clear: Nursing teams are not just adapting to change; they are driving it.
Breakout sessions spotlighted innovations in:
- Technology: ambient nursing documentation, virtual wound care in critical access hospitals and digital workforce planning platforms.
- Patient care: nurse-led cell sampling for eosinophilic esophagitis and new ways of leveraging the licensed practical nurse role to address delayed discharges.
- Workforce and leadership: predictive staffing, communication redesign and microlearning pathways to accelerate change.
- Entrepreneurship in nursing: cultivating nurse-led innovation and business thinking in approaches to care.
Attend the Nursing Transformation Conference online through October 2026.
Learn more
Explore how nurses are leading innovation at Mayo Clinic:
- Mayo Clinic nurses lead the way with AI-powered Nurse Virtual Assistant.
- "AI in Play: Worker Smarter, Not Harder" interview with Frederick on the "See You Now" podcast, produced by Johnson & Johnson and the American Nurses Association.
