“I thought virtual nursing was just a way to pay a very expensive nurse to watch the patient squirm over a monitor,” quipped Carina Manchester, MS, RN-BC, Clinical Solutions Specialist at Connexall. That was before she attended the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in March, and the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) conference in April.
Once Carina attended presentations, spoke with practicing nurses, and conducted research herself, “I think Connexall as a company has tremendous opportunity to help the virtual nursing world and nursing overall.”
Virtual nursing use cases
Carina got excited about the possibilities when she learned about specific use cases that help support nurses and provide better, more compassionate care to patients. For example:
- Workstation on wheels – “Workstation on wheels is way to reduce emergency department boarding time,” Carina explained. “Virtual nurses can see how patients waiting to be admitted are doing and check their vitals. One study found that 30 percent of these patients recovered sufficiently to no longer require an ICU bed. The nurses could instead direct the patients to a step-down or telemetry bed, which opened the opportunity to admit them into the hospital because there were more beds available.”
- Rapid response team – “Bedside nurses can leverage rapid response teams when they notice there is something not quite right about a patient. They can call in the rapid response team to assess the patient and either stabilize them or transfer them to a higher level of care. The rapid response team can also complete required paperwork and notify proper teams, like if the patient needs to go to the operating room.” Workstations on wheels can also help in these situations by leaving the cart in the room to watch the patient and see if their condition worsens.
Boost for bedside staff
Virtual nursing can be a huge help to bedside staff. For example:
- Completing paperwork (admissions, discharges, medication reconciliation)
- Teaching patients
- Answering patient questions
- Mentoring new bedside nurses
“What they have found, from the various conferences I’ve attended this year, is that experienced virtual nurses provide a lot of mentorships for newer nurses,” says Carina.
Nursing at home is a growing trend
In addition to in-hospital virtual nursing, there is a trend toward virtual nursing at home. According to the American Hospital Association, it is estimated that 30% to 40% of all care in the U.S. today can be moved to the home.
“As an intensive care nurse, that made me nervous,” says Carina. But once she looked into it, she sees the practical applications of virtual nursing at home that can truly be helpful; things like experienced nurses handling paperwork and monitoring virtually to help identify patient deterioration. Virtual nurses can also speak with patients in the home to assess their condition, provide medication guidance, and monitor their vitals. “All this allows the newer nurses to concentrate on bedside care.” The technology also allows visiting nurses in the home to contact more experienced virtual nurses with questions.
Connexall is open to virtual nursing partnerships
Connexall already possesses the technology and clinical expertise to partner with hospitals looking to expand virtual nursing services in-hospital, in-home or both.
“Pivoting to virtual care is really natural for us,” says Carina. “We already do the integrations, and we have the nursing knowledge with our clinical team.”
Examples of hospital partnerships may include:
- Technology integrations to enable communication between the virtual and bedside nurses.
- Integrations with workstations on wheels.
- Integrations to enable direct messages about patient deterioration to the right clinician at the right time, enabling rapid response.
For more information or to speak with Connexall about virtual nursing partnerships, please contact Andrea Oser, Director of Sales, at 502-777-9858.
