On June 2-3, 2025, NINR’s Artificial Intelligence Boot Camp explored the impact of AI on health, health research, and clinical practice. The goal of the bootcamp was to facilitate foundational understanding of AI principles, identify actionable steps to incorporate AI into research and clinical practice, and outline ethical considerations for AI adoption. The Bootcamp aimed to train nurse scientists to responsibly and effectively incorporate AI into their research to optimize health and healthcare delivery for all.
Why AI Matters to Nursing and Nursing Research
In alignment with NINR’s mission, the AI Bootcamp elevated the importance and promise of AI in addressing pressing and persistent health challenges. Nursing research takes a holistic perspective on health, with awareness of factors operating at multiple levels and across the lifespan. In the many clinical and community settings in which nurses practice, they interact with individuals and families more closely than any other health profession. These frequent interactions provide opportunities to understand and address factors affecting health at the individual, family, community, and organizational levels. Essentially, nurses are uniquely positioned to lead scientific discoveries and inform research and clinical practice to protect and improve health across the life course.
Nursing research develops real solutions that work for people through mechanisms such as inviting and valuing community voice and considering the whole person and their surrounding environments in the context of care. Thus, nursing’s holistic perspective in the design, implementation, and evaluation of AI tools is critically important to ensure that AI works for the benefit of all.
An Enthusiastic Response
With over 500 participants in attendance and 1000 waitlisted, it’s clear that the nursing research community is eager for AI training and resources. High satisfaction scores in the post-event evaluation further demonstrated participants' enthusiasm for the topics covered in the training.
Bootcamp Overview
Day 1 focused on foundational concepts and principles of AI. This day consisted of two panel sessions covering a wide range of topics important to nursing research and application. At the start of the day, the speakers discussed the synergies between nursing science and AI, the importance of the patient’s voice to ensure that AI is leveraged to its full capacity and benefits all, the ways through which AI is translated into healthcare systems to improve the delivery of care, and the importance of data standards in AI applications. Other topics included discussion about:
- Data sharing
- Ethical considerations in AI applications
- Bias mitigation
- Environmental impacts of AI
Day 2 of the bootcamp consisted of two sessions: 1) Using AI to Advance Social Determinants of Health Research and 2) AI in Clinical and Health Applications. These dynamic presentations extended day 1 discussions by covering topics that leverage:
- Social media data analysis and other textual data analysis (e.g., clinical notes)
- Electronic health records to address chronic and other health conditions
- Digital surveillance and disease forecasting to identify and address adverse health outcomes among communities and populations.
Where Do We Go from Here
NINR has a long-standing scientific interest in advancing AI to promote health and well-being for all. The AI Bootcamp increased knowledge of recent advances in AI and showcased AI research applications. Enthusiasm for this bootcamp suggests high demand for ongoing AI training. In future iterations of this bootcamp, NINR will strive to provide the latest iterations of AI tools and methods and continue to focus on presenting materials that are particularly relevant to the nursing community. Participants also requested social networking opportunities and resources for finding collaborators among nurse scientists interested in leveraging AI and informatics for their research.
Rapid developments in data science and AI are changing our world. These developments have tremendous implications for both research questions that need answers to improve health, as well as how we conduct science in the future. The bootcamp in conjunction with the recommendations provided in the Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Health Working Group Report, a group convened under the auspices of the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research, have set NINR on a path to strengthen AI research and training and meet this tremendous opportunity with scientific rigor and innovation.
