Jennifer Pinto-Martin and Leah Moran have been appointed the inaugural Penn Nurse Innovation Fellows. Dr. Pinto-Martin is the Viola MacInnes/Independence Professor of Nursing, a professor of epidemiology in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and executive director of the Center for Public Health Initiatives. Ms. Moran is nurse manager for the Cardiac Intermediate Care Unit at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Fellowship, which was formed through a collaboration among the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Care Innovation (CHCI) and the Department of Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), supports nursing faculty and staff to develop an intellectual foundation in innovation methodology and gain expertise in the rapid testing of new approaches to enhance health care delivery and patient outcomes.

“Both Dr. Pinto-Martin and Leah Moran make excellent inaugural recipients of this important fellowship,” said Regina Cunningham, senior vice president and chief nurse executive for UPHS. “It is through this type of collaboration—nurses, researchers, physicians, developers coming together—that new avenues to improve patient experiences and outcomes will be developed.”

The new program will foster multidisciplinary collaboration by enabling fellows to work directly with designers, developers and innovation specialists from the CHCI over the course of a semester. As the fellows learn new techniques, they will be able to apply that knowledge to drive change in health care, both at Penn Medicine and beyond.