Empowering nurses to lead healthcare innovation

For Melissa Cheeks, DNP, RN, innovation begins where nursing has always lived: at the bedside, on the front lines where challenges take shape.

After nursing school, she worked in the surgical intensive care unit at The Christ Hospital, caring for critically ill patients and their families. While she loved patient care, she knew she wanted to influence change on a broader scale.

“In the ICU, you’re impacting one or two patients and their families at a time,” Cheeks says. “I wanted to impact nursing on a broad scale, and I knew that to do that I had to be positioned within a large organization.”

That clarity led her to Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery division, where she transitioned from bedside nursing into industry, initially while still working weekends in the hospital. “I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave patients, so I did both.”

Over more than a decade at Johnson & Johnson, Cheeks worked across professional education, clinical sales and marketing. She helped launch the company’s first education program designed specifically for C-suite executives, anticipating the shift toward value-based care.

Later, she led surgical simulation strategy across seven operating companies and helped develop the first minimally invasive colorectal surgical simulator. Throughout it all, nursing remained her anchor. “If I make life better for nurses and doctors, that makes life better for patients.”

After corporate restructuring prompted a potential relocation, Cheeks transitioned into consulting, advising startups and global healthcare organizations alike.

“The start-ups had great ideas, but they didn’t know how to navigate healthcare systems, business strategy, or innovation at scale. My experience at a large multinational healthcare company provided insight and value for my clients.”

In Spring 2026, Cheeks is taking a deliberate step to make nurse-led innovation more accessible and feasible by leading the launch of and directing UC’s Nurse-led Innovation Certificate program.

“The certificate gives nurses structure on how to evaluate an idea, how to move it forward, who to involve.”

The program—offered in partnership with UC Linder College of Business—is designed to be practical, flexible and deeply connected to real-world healthcare challenges. “This isn’t just about creating products,” she says. “It’s about care model innovation, workflow redesign, advocacy and systems thinking.”

Cheeks, who also teaches at the college’s Systems Leadership programs, envisions health systems sponsoring nurses to participate. Innovation, she believes, doesn’t pull nurses away from patient care—it amplifies it.

“Nurses see problems every day and just need the tools and permission to fix them,” she says. “But we can’t do this in isolation, we need the right mindset and partnerships.”

Featured image: Melissa Cheeks in front of UC College of Nursing's Procter Hall. Photo: Connor Boyle/UC Marketing + Brand.