Big Data Science Conference explores successful large-scale nursing innovation

Nurse leaders and informaticists from across the United States gathered at the 2025 Nursing Knowledge: Big Data Science Conference in Minneapolis June 4-6. The conference explored artificial intelligence and discussed exemplars of large-scale nursing research and innovation. 

“There has never been a more significant time for the work that you are doing,” said Dean Connie White Delaney, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FNAP, in her opening statement. “The power of what you are sitting on together in these next few days and in your ongoing work has never been more important and significant.”

Patricia C. Dykes, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and research program director for the Center for Patient Safety, Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, delivered the keynote CONCERN EWS: Leveraging Nurse-Driven Data for Early Prediction and Scalable Implementation in Patient Care. 

Communicating Narrative Concerns Entered by RNs (CONCERN) is an early warning system designed to harness nurses' expert knowledge and observations within patient health records. It turns qualitative data into actionable insights to identify early signs of organ failure or other critical conditions in hospitalized patients. 

“CONCERN is good example of how nursing data can change the world,” says Dykes. “For years, we’ve had early warning systems that use physiological data, but there isn’t a lot of evidence that they make a huge difference in terms of patient outcomes. CONCERN, which uses nursing documentation patterns and signals, has been able to demonstrate tremendous outcomes for patients and for our health system. It demonstrates nursing documentation is invaluable and it saves lives.”

She shared findings from a multisite clinical trial and discussed the creation of the CONCERN Implementation Toolkit to scale the system’s success to support broader adoption across health care settings.

Asha Immanuelle, MAS, RN, PHM-C, CPHIMS, Gravity Project community liaison, presented Gravity Project: Data to Address Social Needs and Advance Maternal Health Equity about integrating social needs data into clinical and community care through consensus-driven standards. The standardized social determinants of health data informs care, enables cross-sector collaboration and drives whole-person policy. 

Lorena de Leon, DPA, MBA, senior director of Population Health and Social Determinants for Maryland Physicians Care, and Bryce Parker, MPH, Population Health Analytics Team epidemiologist for Maryland Physicians Care, discussed A Comprehensive Approach to Address Social Needs Beyond Critical Care. They delved into the strategies employed by Maryland's third-largest Medicaid-only managed care organization to address social needs outside of critical care via a proactive model of moving using data to identify and address fundamental issues in individuals' lives. Key topics included the role of data in identifying barriers, the development of social risk scores, and the creation of strategic partnerships to improve access and support a closed-loop referral system.

Kathy Bobay, PhD, RN, ACHIP, FAAN, professor at Loyola University Chicago,moderated the panel From Clinical to Social Data: How to Leverage Analytics to Address Social Determinants of Health with de Leon, Parker and Immanuelle.

Susan Matney, PhD, RNC-OB, FAAN, FACMI, FHIMSS, FHL7, AL2 Informatics Consultant, Wise Owl Originals, moderated the panel Data, Nursing, and Standards: A Multifaceted Perspective for Technology Driven Care with Jane M. Carrington, PhD, RN, FAMIA, FAAN, University of Florida College of Nursing, Allen Flynn, PharmD, PhD, University of Michigan Medical School, and Kelly Aldrich, DNP, RN, NI-BC, FHIMSS, FAAN, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.

The Nursing Knowledge Big Data Science Initiative eight work groups reported on major achievements and discussed top priorities for the coming year.

The 2026 Nursing Knowledge: Big Data Conference will be held June 3-5, 2026, in Minneapolis.