Implementing Virtual Nursing at Your Facility: Step-by-Step Guide

Nearly one-half (45%) of nursing professionals responding to an IntelyCare survey said they intend to leave the profession. Given the nursing shortages already affecting many U.S. states, solutions like virtual nursing care are becoming a healthcare staffing imperative. Virtual (or remote) nursing is a cost-effective way to leverage technology, allowing nurses to answer patient and family concerns, provide assessments, and offer timely clinical advice from afar.

If you’re looking to address your own staffing struggles — or simply curious about alternative methods to enhance your organization’s accessibility — this guide has the tips and answers to help ensure your program’s successful implementation.

What Is Virtual Nursing?

A virtual nurse is a licensed nurse who uses critical thinking to perform key nursing duties from a remote location. Their nursing expertise may be utilized in various practice settings, from hospitals to ambulatory clinics, providing nursing care such as:

• Admission intake and discharge teaching
• Remote monitoring
• Tele-triage
• Teleconsultation

Remote nurses can provide valuable assistance with patient care, help reduce costs, and increase efficiency in practice settings. They’re available 24/7, which means patients can get support when needed, even outside of typical clinic hours. Other benefits of virtual nursing care include improved patient engagement as a result of better accessibility and personalized health education about their condition and treatment plan.

Additionally, virtual healthcare roles help reduce the workload on in-house staff by serving as another set of eyes on patients. They can help prevent patient deterioration by catching subtle changes early, particularly if the primary nurse has a heavy workload and is busy with other patients. Bedside nurses may also utilize their virtual counterparts to cosign drugs or verify assessment findings.

Virtual (to include telehealth) nurse jobs can be appealing for nurses interested in leaving the bedside or needing less physically demanding work. With flexible hours and better control over their schedules, they can become valuable members of your facility’s care team. Some example virtual nurse jobs include:

• Remote nursing as a program instructor by correspondence, for example.
• Telenursing opportunities such as telehealth telemetry.
• Other virtual options like being a digital nurse educator.

Virtual Nursing Pros and Cons

Innovation generally comes with its advantages and disadvantages. This is similarly true for virtual nurses in hospitals and across care settings. Here are some benefits and drawbacks worth considering before you change how patients access nursing care at your facility.

How to Set Up a Virtual Program for Nursing Teams: 4 Steps

Setting up a virtual care nursing program requires careful planning and execution. If you’ve weighed the advantages and disadvantages and you’re ready to proceed, we can help. Here are the four foundational steps to implementing a successful virtual or remote nursing program.

1. Set Program Objectives

Before setting up a virtual care program, it’s important to set realistic goals that will help you measure the success of the program. The desired outcomes will depend on the type of virtual care platform your organization implements. For example, a trauma center may have a higher incidence of closed-head injury patients who are at risk for falls. It may be fitting to invest in a platform that offers AI-enabled fall risk assessments or virtual sitters.

Alternatively, a step-down unit with high ICU readmission rates may consider investing in a platform that allows virtual nurses to monitor vital signs and other assessment pieces. However, during the initial stages of change, it may be best to start with lower acuity settings that involve less critical decision-making. Here are some examples of virtual care nursing program goals:

• Increase patient satisfaction scores by providing timely access to care.
• Reduce call bell response times.
• Increase access to care for underserved or rural populations.
• Improve follow-up pain scoring documentation.
• Reduce fall rates.
• Reduce readmission rates by providing more effective discharge teaching.
• Prevent medication errors by providing more thorough medication reconciliation on admission.

2. Create Protocols to Define a Virtual Nurse’s Scope

To effectively implement a virtual care program at your facility, the entire staff should be aware of the expectations around providing nursing care virtually. Whether a facility hires a nurse to work remotely from within their organization or through a third-party staffing company, it’s important to have policies and procedures that clearly define their role. These policies should also cover any unique considerations regarding remote care and compliance with HIPAA.

Provide staff education prior to the program rollout to clarify questions about shared responsibilities, nursing delegation, and scope of practice.

3. Invest in Technology

Technology can be used for a number of purposes, such as internet-based video conferencing, telemedicine, and virtual communication via the electronic health record (EHR) system. The type of virtual nursing model you choose will depend on the program goals at your facility. Healthcare organizations may need to invest in technology such as:

• Telecare platforms
• Telehealth monitors
• Cameras for patient rooms
• Remote monitoring equipment
• Mobile phones

When choosing the right platform option for meeting your facility’s needs, consider the program objectives. As your staff becomes more comfortable with the platform, advanced telemonitoring technology such as deterioration management or virtual rapid response deployment may be a good next step within your program’s trajectory.

4. Evaluate and Adapt

Throughout the program roll-out, check in with nurses at the bedside to see how it’s going. Objective data like fall rates and call bell response times are helpful, but hearing from nurses at the bedside is equally important to ensuring program success. For example, consider conducting anonymous surveys to measure nurses’ perceptions of the program. Example questions may include:

• How has your workflow changed since implementing the program?
• Has the number of distractions per shift increased or decreased?
• How has the program affected patient safety?

Staff feedback, combined with measurable data, can be used to inform changes to the program and guide leaders in deciding about future investments in other virtual care services. It’s important for healthcare administrators to recognize that while virtual nurses supplement healthcare staff, they aren’t meant to take the place of skilled bedside nurses.

It’s imperative to continue taking a root-cause approach to correct short-staffing, like examining the work culture and conditions causing nurses to leave. Remote staff roles should never be factored into nurse staffing to justify unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios.

Find Qualified Nursing Professionals for Your Organization

As you weigh your virtual nursing platform options to address staffing challenges in the modern healthcare landscape, you’ll still need nursing professionals to fill those digital seats. The right nursing job board can make all the difference. Get access to a nationwide network of more than 1 million skilled nursing professionals by posting to IntelyCare’s job board today.