Arizona State University Social Innovation Start-Up Lab

Winning team members of NurseWav (pictured on the left and right) receive the jumbo check from one of the judges (pictured in the middle).

Arizona State University’s (ASU) Social Innovation Start-up Lab, a course for ASU graduate students, concluded on November 16 with seven student teams pitching to a panel of judges. The partnership between the Patient Safety Technology Challenge and this pitch competition was unique as funding was not provided by the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative. Instead, the course professors invited Ariana Longley, project manager of the Patient Safety Technology Challenge, to pitch patient safety as a topic for the students in their course to tackle.

One team, NurseWav, formed and received support from Longley throughout the fall semester. She focused primarily on directing them to subject matter experts to help them with understanding the problem they chose and with customer discovery. Their solution focused on creating a tech-enabled solution to address alarm fatigue for nurses in non-acute post-surgery units in hospitals. In the end, NurseWav and one other team, FinEdu, split the grand prize of $5,000. NurseWav will use the $2,500 prize from the pitch competition to continue working on their project.

Team members were thankful for Longley’s support throughout the semester. Dominic Charles said, “It was great working with [Longley], and we had a great experience working towards causes that need urgent attention.”

The Social Innovation Start-Up Lab was a new way to engage with students and raise the visibility of patient safety with future innovators.

Longley shared, “We were thrilled to be involved in a non-traditional pitch competition, woven into courses for graduate students interested in social innovation. It was a rewarding experience and even sweeter once we found out that the patient safety-focused team had taken home part of the cash prize.”