As a critical care nurse at Banner Health, a health system serving seven states in the Western United States, I’ve spent the last eight years working in telehealth, as a “virtual nurse.” On average, I monitor 40 to 45 patients every day, across three to six facilities in the region – a far shot from the five or six patients I could monitor as a bedside nurse in the past. My job is to provide care to patients and support to nurses when they need it most, especially at remote community hospitals that don’t have specialized ICUs. When these hospitals admit high acuity patients, our virtual telehealth command center allows me to monitor patients remotely, so these local care teams can keep the patient in their community hospital, rather than having to transport them four or five hours away to access higher acuity care.
The virtual nurse is here!
Nursing has evolved over the past few decades. The commonly perceived view of the nurse at the bedside, monitoring a patient’s vital signs or assisting physicians during rounds, has changed. With the advent of new digital technologies in health care, such as telehealth and remote monitoring tools, today’s nurse can be practically virtual. As we celebrate International Nurses Day today, I want to shed some light on what it takes to be a virtual nurse.