We are overjoyed to celebrate National Nurses Week at Design Science. Our day-to-day work often includes interviewing nurses and asking them to provide feedback on new medical devices, training materials, and user interfaces to ensure the future of healthcare considers the needs of healthcare workers as well as patients. We are so fortunate to have these opportunities to work with our healthcare heroes and we honor them (from our homes) this week.

This year is an extraordinary Nurses Week because it ends on the 200^th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.

Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, is known for her reform of the Barrack Hospital where they were treating wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. As reports made their way back to England of the ineffective methods being used to treat the soldiers, resulting in high mortality rates, she came to intervene. By implementing strict standards of care such as bathing, clean clothing, adequate food, and hand washing, Nightingale helped the mortality rate to drop. After the war, she used her new fame and private donations to institute the Nightingale School of Nursing, formalizing education and paving the way for modern nursing.

We can all learn a little from Florence Nightingale and her desire to care for others. So let’s all remember to take care of each other, wash our hands, and appreciate the nurses that are on the frontlines every day.

Selanders, Louise. “Florence Nightingale.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 9 Aug. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale.