SUMMARY
Colin M. Plover, Ph.D., M.S.N./M.P.H., M.S.N., M.S.Ed., R.N., is a nurse scientist with training in public health, innovation, entrepreneurship, education, advanced practice, and leadership. His research focuses on health systems and workforce innovation. This involves qualitative, quantitative, mixed, entrepreneurial and innovation methods. His work focuses on improving patient, nurse and health systems' outcomes.
The nature of this work is evidenced through the development of an innovative research-driven entrepreneurial endeavor funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Plover synthesized qualitative and quantitative research and applied innovation and entrepreneurial methods to develop a data analytics and software company focused on workforce optimization. This endeavor applies big data and machine learning to improve quality of care, efficiency of care delivery, costs of care and outcomes for nurses and patients. Dr. Plover's research devotes special attention to health disparities and marginalized populations.
Dr. Plover has an overarching goal to apply his research, innovation and entrepreneurial training to improve health care systems. He also aims to develop systems that facilitate the engagement of others in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Focus areas
- Health systems and workforce research. Conduct research to better understand relationships between health care system operations and the experience of care delivery for health care professionals, patients and families.
- Innovation and entrepreneurship. Identify opportunities for innovations revealed through research, test their viability and explore entrepreneurial potential in service of creating scalable systems to improve access, cost and quality.
- Health disparities. Target research, innovation and entrepreneurship to better understand the drivers of health disparities and create opportunities for innovative interventions to foster more equitable health care environments.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Plover's program of research, innovation and entrepreneurship aims to reveal, translate and scale interventions that improve efficiency of care delivery, quality of care, costs of care, the experience of care delivery, and outcomes for patients, families, health care professionals and health systems. Likewise, he aims to catalyze research, innovation and entrepreneurship through the development of systems enabling others to improve outcomes for all stakeholders.
Professional highlights
- Founder, president and CEO of Nightingale Caring Solutions, 2020-present.
- Postdoctoral fellow, Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech, 2020-2022.
- Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant award, National Science Foundation, 2021.
- Senior fellow, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania, 2020.
- Assistant professor, Thomas Jefferson University, 2018-2020.