UnityPoint Health's 4 Future Plans for Virtual Nursing

UnityPoint's CNO discusses the future of the health system's virtual nursing program.

The potential of virtual nursing seems promising as many health systems begin to brainstorm and implement programs of their own.

Sarah Brown, CNO at UnityPoint Health, laid out how the Iowa-based health system has set up their virtual nursing program and what their four goals are for the future.

Brown is a part of the HealthLeaders Virtual Nursing Mastermind panel, where several health systems will discuss the ins and outs of their virtual nursing programs and what their goals are for implementing this new strategy.

Starting goals

Many health systems are using virtual nursing to offload work and give time back to nurses to be at the bedside. And at UnityPoint it's no different.

"Our goals with it initially, and I would say they have morphed a bit over time," Brown said, "[were] really to redesign the work so that we could remove some work from our nurses that were at the bedside to try to make their experience while they were at work better."

Brown said UnityPoint wanted to set up the program in a way that did not sacrifice quality or patient experience. The main focus was on improving the bedside nurse experience, and that remains a priority, along with efficiency and quality goals.

"I think the efficiency piece comes when we’re getting high, 90%, maybe even 100% of our admissions on our med surg inpatient united completed within the first four hours," Brown said. "That's not something we could have said before."

Brown attributed that success to how they resourced differently. There is now more focus and consistency with the people doing the admission and discharge processes, and so they are able to do more of them. Brown said they are heading toward a retention goal with the program as well.

"With that experience, they catch more things," Brown said. "I think where we want to go is then more focused on our new-to-practice nurses that really need more of a mentor [or] coach sort of role."

What's next

Brown sees UnityPoint going through four evolutionary phases with the virtual nursing program.

Phase one includes the admission and discharge processes and other documentation needs, along with some care planning and patient education.

Phase two will focus on operations and implementing in-room technology. This would enable the virtual nurse to help check medications, blood draws and other processes with the bedside nurse in the room. They could also help assist with documentation during a rapid response situation, and help with virtual rounding.

"I think we are a bit hampered with moving forward in the other phases without the in-room technology," Brown said, "so that piece will be really important to us."

The third phase is expanding the program to allow for monitoring on a broader scale. Virtual nurses could then act as eyes in the sky, to look for deterioration, sepsis, or other patient conditions.

At that point, the health system could move to the fourth phase and use virtual nursing for mentorship of new-to- practice nurses.

Brown said that three years into the program they have really matured the first phase, but they still have a long way to go to get to the long-term goals.

Additionally, Brown is hopeful that UnityPoint can implement virtual care in the EICU.

"Like many organizations, we are at max capacity in many of our hospitals on a daily basis," Brown said. "I have this idea that there has to be a way we can incorporate virtual waiting room monitoring or virtual nursing in our emergency departments as well."

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.