Virtual nursing is only one piece of the workforce puzzle, says this nurse leader.
On this week's episode of the HealthLeaders podcast, Clair Lunt, senior director of nursing informatics at Mount Sinai Health System, chats with nursing editor G Hatfield about the HealthLeaders Virtual Nursing Mastermind program, and what other health systems can learn about implementing virtual nursing programs. Listen to the episode here.
Proving ROI
One of the biggest challenges with virtual nursing is proving ROI and defining the metrics with which to measure progress. Dr. Lunt spoke about how timely discharges can be a tricky metric to prove, because there are so many factors that can contribute to a lower discharge time, besides the presence of a virtual nurse.
Dr. Lunt said that at Mount Sinai, they are using sick time as a metric. Virtual nursing gives nurses who are physically or emotionally exhausted the option to work in a less stressful capacity.
"Not so much the turnover of the staff," Dr. Lunt said, "but the sick time, like the mental health days that we know sometimes are just absolutely necessary for nurses that have had a day."
At the Virtual Nursing Mastermind program summit, many of the participants spoke about turning "soft" metrics like patient satisfaction into "hard dollars," and to Dr. Lunt, it's all about connecting the dots.
"Rather than just saying, 'oh, look, our satisfaction rate went up,' [you need to ask] what does that mean?" Dr. Lunt said. "It's nice to know that people like our service, but what does that mean to us in a dollar sense?"
Moving forward
So, what comes next?
According to Dr. Lunt, the conversation moves well past virtual nursing and into staffing the workforce.
"How can we sustain the staff that we have knowing that there probably aren't enough coming up in the future to replace any that leave?" Dr. Lunt said. "Technology is one way of being able to do that."
However, Dr. Lunt also made it clear that nurses will always be critical to the healthcare workforce.
"We will always need nurses," Dr. Lunt said. "Nothing will replace them, because without them, data just doesn't happen without people putting something into the system somewhere."
The HealthLeaders Mastermind series is an exclusive series of calls and events with healthcare executives. This Virtual Nursing Mastermind series features ideas, solutions, and insights on excelling your virtual nursing program. Please join the community at our LinkedIn page.
To inquire about participating in an upcoming Mastermind series or attending a HealthLeaders Exchange event, email us at exchange@healthleadersmedia.com.
G Hatfield is the nursing editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Health systems should track their virtual nursing successes using metrics that show improvement in targeted areas.
The conversation stems far beyond virtual nursing, and leaders should ultimately center the discussion around the workforce and how technology can support nurses.