Traditional care delivery models are splintering under the weight of chronic workforce shortages and increasing healthcare needs, according to a Wolters Kluwer survey of nursing leaders.
The organization surveyed 157 nurse leaders in November for its first “FutureCare Nursing 2025” report, which explored whether delivery models launched during the COVID-19 pandemic have endured. The executives lead integrated multistate systems, teaching hospitals, community hospitals, acute care hospitals, post-acute hospitals and specialty hospitals.
As higher-acuity cases continue to increase, nurse leaders said innovation in care delivery is vital. Here are the five top delivery models they are planning to implement:
1. Home health nursing (71% of nurse leaders plan to launch)
2. Internal float pools (68%)
3. Virtual nursing (66%)
4. Telehealth nursing (66%)
5. Multi-disciplinary care (61%)
“We firmly believe that the biggest risk right now lies in the status quo,” Syl Trepanier, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer at Renton, Wash.-based Providence, told Wolters Kluwer. “It doesn’t matter how good we are at hiring or retaining nurses; we’re simply never going to have enough of them if we keep working the way we do right now.”
The three most popular delivery models that health systems and hospitals are currently leveraging are value-based care, collaborative care and team-based nursing.
To support the five future-looking delivery models, nurse leaders said the most in-demand roles will be nurse informatics, telehealth nurses, nurse care coordinators, nurse educators in telehealth and virtual care, internal float pool nurses, home health nurse coordinators and nurse case managers.
“The findings … show that the path to new models may be less about which particular models work best and more about how to design new models that will drive meaningful change and result in sustainable improvements in patient outcomes,” the report said.
