Virtual nursing is growing beyond the four walls of the hospital.
For instance, Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, one of the leading providers of inpatient virtual nursing, is expanding the care model to its ambulatory practices. Virtual nurses now handle after-hours calls for outpatient offices, triaging patients to urgent or emergency care or scheduling next-day appointments.
“We’re using virtual nursing in so many different ways now, and it’s an evolution,” said Kathy Sanford, RN, executive vice president and chief nursing officer at CommonSpirit Health, at Becker’s 10th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Conference in October.
Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare also has about 60 ambulatory virtual nurses who triage patients who call in, directing them to their next step of care.
In addition, the academic health system has a pilot where acute care virtual nurses hand off patients with diabetes and congestive heart failure to outpatient virtual nurses.
“That ambulatory virtual nurse then picks up the care from that point to make sure they’re calling the patient within 24 hours,” said Jason Atkins, RN, vice president and chief clinical informatics officer of Emory Healthcare, at the conference.
“They’re getting that patient an appointment with either their cardiologist or their current primary care physician, and then they’re following up with them to make sure that if they have transportation issues or medication management issues, that they’re getting the right people involved.”
Virtual nurses have already supported care at home, including hospital-at-home and CommonSpirit’s home health service, and could expand to other settings in the future.
“What’s next for it? The sky is the limit,” Ms. Sanford said.
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