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FROM ER TO INPATIENT: WHERE YOU’LL MEET VIRTUAL NURSES Hospital systems integrate virtual nurses differently. Some require them to work at the bedside for some shifts, while other nurses

work exclusively virtually. And even in systems that have widely adopted them —like Trinity, which employs virtual nurses across 82 units in 27 hospitals in 11 states — they’re not in every

unit. How a patient encounters a virtual nurse also varies. At hospitals run by Trinity Health, patients see a virtual nurse on a TV screen and can call the virtual nurse by pressing a

button at their bedside. Other institutions use iPads, some equipped with external speakers. Despite these differences, there are a few common models for how virtual nurses work. Take, for

example, hospital admissions. Patients admitted through the emergency room (ER) might see a virtual nurse to complete paperwork while waiting for a bed, explains Devika S. Kandhai, nurse

manager at University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center (UMBWMC), in Glen Burnie, Maryland.  And that, nurse leaders say, can reduce bedside nurses’ workload. The virtual

nurses complete the time-consuming labor of documentation needed to comply with state regulations, leaving on-site nurses with “more time back at the bedside with the patient,” says Amy

Hassell, chief nursing officer with the UCHealth Virtual Health Center.  But not all nurses agree that virtual nurses alleviate their work, particularly in hospitals where staffing ratios

rise or remain untenable for nurses working a brick-and-mortar shift. In fact, some say that implementing virtual nursing along with higher patient-to-nurse ratios introduces safety concerns

due to the hands-on attention that critical care patients need, according to an article published in _Cardiology Advisor_. HOW VIRTUAL NURSING CAN BENEFIT PATIENTS In patient rooms, virtual

nurses take on various tasks, including assessing patients’ pain. At Trinity’s hospitals, a virtual nurse can zoom in to examine a surgical site and monitor for a potential infection.

Virtual nurses can then pull up the patient’s chart, and if they don’t have an order for what the patient needs — say, pain medication — they can reach out to the physician, get the order

and then contact the bedside nurse to say, “This is what I’ve assessed. I think you need to give the patient this much medication, and I’ve got the orders, and you’re cleared to go,”

explains Landstrom. Such assessments are also an opportunity for mentorship. Kandhai says that more experienced virtual nurses “can be the second pair of eyes” that a junior nurse needs. At

some institutions, such as UMBWMC, virtual nurses can discharge patients and review instructions for home care. Like a Zoom meeting, multiple people can join these discharge meetings —

patients’ children, spouses, interpreters — no matter where they’re located, says Iskra Gillis, director of UMBWMC’s Acute Care Services. And because everyone is part of the same

conversation, they’re all “hearing the same thing,” she says, rather than relaying instructions secondhand, which can lead to missed information or misunderstandings. “That makes the

patients safer, too,” Gillis adds.