How virtual nursing can help medical practices address nursing shortage challenges

Virtual nurses can mitigate staff shortages © K Davis:peopleimages.com. - stock.adobe.com

Nursing shortages have reached critical levels across the United States, creating significant challenges for health care providers. This trend directly impacts the quality of care that patients receive, as well as the operational efficiency and financial health of medical practices.

Virtual nursing has emerged as a promising solution that can provide much-needed support to on-site nursing teams. It can also yield numerous other benefits, such as improving patient safety, reducing costs, and preventing burnout. By integrating virtual nursing into their operations, medical practice owners can enhance patient care while optimizing their resources.

What is virtual nursing?

Virtual nurses operate away from the patient floor, either from a designated area within the health care facility or an off-site location. Using advanced audiovisual technologies, these nurses can view patient rooms, communicate with patients about their needs, and meet with family members. Acting as the eyes and ears for on-site nurses, virtual nurses facilitate real-time updates on patient conditions, allowing floor nurses to focus on direct patient care.

Medical facilities may either hire and manage their own virtual nurses, or they may contract with third-party companies that employ teams of virtual nurses who work from remote locations. These companies typically serve multiple practices simultaneously. In both models, virtual nursing teams coordinate with on-site nurses, ensuring continuous and comprehensive patient monitoring.

Benefits of virtual nursing

Due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the aging U.S. population, it has become increasingly difficult for providers to staff enough nurses to meet patient needs at an optimal level. The shortage was initially most severe in intensive care units, but it has since spread to other nursing areas. Virtual nursing provides access to a larger pool of nursing talent without the geographic limitations of traditional hiring, allowing practices to fill staffing gaps more effectively.

In addition to the direct benefit of bolstering nursing staffs, there are several other advantages to implementing virtual nursing at a medical practice.

Preventing patient health setbacks

Virtual nurses play a crucial role in monitoring patients for health and safety risks. For example, if a high-risk patient attempts to get out of bed unassisted, the virtual nurse can alert the on-site team to intervene, preventing falls and injuries. This proactive monitoring also helps care teams detect early signs of deteriorating health conditions, enabling them to treat patients before their conditions become more severe.

In a 2019 study published in the journal Nursing Administration Quarterly, researchers found that facilities that implemented a virtual nursing model called Virtually Integrated Care were able to prevent about 1,400 errors per quarter over a two-year period. The same report documented improvements in the quality of care provided under the VIC model, including lower rates of deep vein thrombosis and hospital-acquired infections.

Reducing costs of care

Falls and other injuries contribute to significant increases in the cost of providing care to patients. By preventing such incidents, virtual nurses help providers avoid these unexpected expenses. Moreover, virtual nursing can improve overall health outcomes by facilitating follow-up care post-discharge and ensuring better continuity of care among different providers, reducing the likelihood of communication-related mistakes.

Alleviating nurse burnout

Nurse burnout is another pressing concern at health care facilities, with many nurses handling more patients than they can reasonably manage — a trend that is worsening due to the nursing shortage. Virtual nurses can ease workloads for on-site nurses by covering tasks such as routine patient communication, documentation, and discharges. This added support helps reduce stress among nursing teams, contributing to better job satisfaction and lower turnover rates.

Extending career longevity

Virtual nursing also creates new opportunities for experienced nurses to continue their careers away from the physical demands of bedside care. This could help providers reduce retirement-related turnover rates and continue to benefit from the valuable expertise of their veteran nurses.

Considerations for practices implementing virtual nursing

While there are many benefits to implementing virtual nursing at a medical practice, there are also a number of issues and potential challenges that providers should consider before making this investment.

Trust and reliability

Trust is essential when integrating virtual nursing into a practice. This is especially true when working with an outside company that manages nurses at an off-site facility that might not even be located in the same state as the practice. In these situations, providers do not necessarily have full transparency or direct oversight of the nursing teams that are monitoring their patients.

For that reason, before selecting a company, it is crucial to thoroughly evaluate all potential vendors. Look at their success rates, training methods, and other criteria that could affect their ability to meet patients’ needs.

It’s also important to get as many details as possible about the individual nurses on the virtual team. Ask questions such as: How experienced are they? Are their licenses up to date? Are they current on their continuing education?

In terms of skill sets, virtual nurses must be excellent communicators and critical thinkers, and they need to have enough clinical experience to proactively detect changes in patients’ conditions. It will take some time to build the necessary level of trust, but doing due diligence from the very beginning is key to the success of any virtual nursing partnership.

Financial investment

Implementing virtual nursing systems requires a significant financial commitment. Practice owners must consider the costs of purchasing high-tech equipment such as cameras, speakers, video monitors, and tablet devices, as well as ongoing training and operating expenses. However, the long-term savings and improved patient outcomes often justify the initial investment.

Staff buy-in and training

There are always learning curves associated with introducing new processes and technologies in healthcare settings, and virtual nursing is no exception. Practice owners should communicate proactively and provide comprehensive training to get buy-in from staff and ensure that everyone understands the new system in detail. Doing pilot testing and implementing changes gradually will also help set the stage for a smooth transition.

A catalyst for health care transformation

Virtual nursing is not just a temporary fix to the current nursing shortage. By enhancing patient monitoring, improving care coordination, and ensuring higher standards of safety and quality, it signifies a longer-term shift in how healthcare can be delivered in the digital age.

Practices that effectively integrate these systems will have opportunities to deliver better patient care, reduce costs, and ease workloads for clinical teams. But for this model to succeed, it will be essential to put the patient’s perspective at the forefront and design virtual nursing solutions around their needs.

Yolanda M. VanRiel, RN, PhD, is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Nursing at North Carolina Central University.