Much like the telehealth visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual nurses interact with patients via a screen.
HCA Healthcare says virtual nurses can complete admission health and medication history, perform discharge education and do other administrative work to allow bedside staff more hands-on time with patients.
“In several pilot programs within our organization, remotely located virtual nurses are proving to be extremely valuable in the areas of admissions, medication history, discharge teaching and rounding,” says Sherri Hayes, vice president and chief nursing informatics officer at HCA Healthcare.
“Virtual care can attract a variety of nurses, including nurses considering retirement, who are committed to our goals of improving bedside nurse satisfaction and the patient experience.”
Jennifer Ball, RN, BSN, MBA is a director of virtual care at Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City.
She helped open a new 33-bed nursing unit that uses virtual nurses. She says it’s true, virtual nurses free up bedside nurses to manage the patient’s physical needs and answer call lights sooner.
The unit has a special call light for the virtual nurse where the patient gets assistance from a medical professional that’s familiar with their condition and can meet their needs, all without being in the room with them.
Ball says communication and team building are critically important to virtual nursing.
“We are all one big staff and have joint staff meetings and education,” she says, adding Saint Luke’s is expanding the virtual nursing model to other units. Ball says that for virtual nursing to be successful, staff have to be flexible and willing to try new things. They need to buy in from the beginning.
“This is an adventure, and you will be paving the way for not only nursing, but other disciplines that will want to use this model of care,” Ball says.
Virtual nursing is a way for experienced nurses to stay in the field without staying on their feet.
At HCA, many of their virtual nurses have years of experience and are trained in their respective hospital’s electronic health record system, routing and queuing processes and communication tools.
Furthermore, bedside nurses check in with patients to make sure they’re comfortable with a virtual nurse.
“We have the opportunity to innovate patient care by being a ‘helping hand’ at the bedside, from a virtual perspective,” says Tabitha Anglea, assistant vice president of CRM clinical operations at HCA Healthcare.
“Not only are we supporting the patient, but we are creating a modern nursing model by building a collaborative partnership between the bedside and virtual nurse.”