Ascom, a leading provider of clinical workflow and mobile communication solutions, and AvaSure, a leader in AI-powered virtual care, have signed a multi-year Interoperability Partner Agreement to integrate AvaSure’s Virtual Care Platform with Ascom’s Healthcare Platform suite and Myco™ devices. This collaboration will enable hospitals to streamline communication, enhance care team coordination, and deliver safer, more efficient patient care.
According to survey data, 74% of acute care hospital leaders indicate that virtual nursing plays a significant role in influencing key hospital metrics1. When considering metrics for the success of virtual care programs, several can be favorably impacted through integration with the Ascom Healthcare Platform.
The AvaSure platform delivers AI-powered virtual care solutions, including virtual nursing, virtual observation, and virtual visits, that help hospitals reduce costs, improve patient outcomes, and increase care team efficiency. Its AI-augmented capabilities, such as ambient monitoring for falls, operational and patient safety monitoring, and a virtual care assistant, further enhance clinical workflows. Supported by experienced care experts and built to meet enterprise IT standards, AvaSure’s proven solutions are trusted by more than 1,200 hospitals with over 5,000 deployments worldwide.
“Healthcare leaders are looking for integrated, intelligent solutions that improve care delivery without adding complexity,” said Adam McMullin, CEO of AvaSure. “Our partnership with Ascom is a strategic step toward building a more connected care environment where virtual care, communication, and clinical workflows seamlessly support frontline staff and elevate patient outcomes.”
“Integration between AvaSure’s and Ascom’s healthcare platforms allows near real-time virtual monitoring alerts from AvaSure to be routed through Ascom’s clinical workflow engine and sent to the appropriate caregiver(s) with contextual relevance and actionable data,” said Tobias Stanelle, Managing Director, Ascom Americas. “This interoperability facilitates care collaboration between virtual and in-person clinical staff, which leads to better informed decision making, improved response times, staff satisfaction, and patient outcomes.”
The partnership allows both companies to address the increasing demand in healthcare for integrated, vendor-neutral systems that connect clinical communication and monitoring technologies. The Ascom-AvaSure integration is available to mutual customers and can be implemented as part of broader alarm management or virtual care initiatives.
Emergency Department (ED) boarding continues to strain hospitals, driving up costs, compromising patient outcomes, and contributing to clinician burnout. However, this critical issue presents an overlooked opportunity: what if solving ED boarding could pay for itself—and even fund a virtual nursing program? This whitepaper explores how tackling ED boarding not only improves operational efficiency and patient flow, but also offers a path to sustainably deploy virtual care solutions without additional budgetary strain.
Download the guide to learn:
How addressing ED boarding issues could help fund your virtual care program deployment through cost savings
How much ED boarding increases per-patient costs by day, totaling millions in annual losses
The clinical and operational impacts of ED boarding, including increased mortality and staff burnout
The top ways virtual nurses directly impact ED boarding
Industry experts, healthcare leaders, and the market have all agreed – virtual nursing is here to stay. In a 2024 study, 74% of hospital leaders reported that virtual nursing will become integral to care delivery models in acute inpatient care —up from 66% in 20231. However, only 10% of hospital leaders have reached a phase where virtual care is a standard part of care delivery, and nearly 30% of hospitals have no virtual care workflows at all1.
Why the gap?
Pilot or partial deployments of virtual nursing are where most institutions are getting stuck!
How can we break through perpetual pilots and scale virtual nursing to be a standard part of care delivery?
Let’s ask the experts.
AvaSure, a leading provider of Intelligent Virtual Care Platforms, consulted with two leading healthcare institutions that have successfully moved beyond the pilot phase and fully integrated virtual nursing into their daily patient care. Together, they explored how these organizations made the transition and shared valuable insights and advice for other institutions just beginning their virtual nursing journey.
UCHealth
UCHealth, a nationally recognized healthcare system with $7.5 billion in operating revenue and over 33,000 employees, operates 14 Colorado hospitals, providing more than 2,500 inpatient beds, and over 200 clinics across Colorado, southern Wyoming, and western Nebraska. Their 2016 Virtual Health Center significantly enhances patient care through virtual deterioration monitoring, TeleICU, centralized telemetry, virtual admission & discharge support, virtual sitting, virtual consults & more. This Virtual Health Center has touched over 2.3 million patient lives, achieving remarkable outcomes like reducing code blue rates by up to 40%, increasing rapid response rates and improving patient safety through virtual sitting, yielding nearly $9 million in 1:1 sitter cost savings. To support these expanded use-cases and future-proof the patient room for a hybrid patient care model, UCHealth implemented a ‘camera-in-every-room’ philosophy.
Amy Hassell, MSN, BSN, RN, CNO of Virtual Health Center, UCHealth Tamera Dunseth Rosenbaum, DNP, RN, NE-BC, System CNO of UCHealth
Hackensack Meridian Health
As New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive not-for-profit healthcare network, Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) delivers a full spectrum of medical services, innovative research, and life-enhancing care through its 18 hospitals, 36,000+ team members, 7,000 physicians, and 500+ patient care sites. HMH kicked off their virtual nursing journey in 2022 with the goal of improving outcomes and patient/provider satisfaction. With a virtual nursing pilot focused on virtual admission & discharge support, they successfully removed time-consuming task-based work from bedside teams. Following a year of successful implementation, the results prompted hospital leadership to expand the program across four hospitals.
11.6% reduction in length of stay
65% reduction in RN traveler hours and 26% reduction in RN overtime hours
0.68% reduction in readmission rates
Marie Foley-Danecker, DNP, RN, CCRN, NE-BE, VP & CNO of Hackensack Meridian Health
Pilot sticking point: lack of organizational alignment on program goal requires vision & change management
Lesson One: It requires both leadership support and buy-in from frontline staff to be successful.
The true blending of virtual and in-person clinical workflows is a technology investment, a change in nursing practice and a change in patient care. “Don’t underestimate the amount of cross-functional alignment it takes to get to one platform, one operating strategy across the network – it takes a village,” said Marie Foley-Danecker. HMH has 5 distinct project teams that stood up to help scale their pilot across the system:
Tech Build Team (Both Network and Site Level) – make decisions around hardware, software, server, infrastructure, hosting and more – ensuring the system has not just the right technology, but the support infrastructure needed to support ongoing virtual care.
Clinical Workflow Team – help to ensure that bedside workflows are standardized and the virtual workflows fit seamlessly into them. If you don’t start with standard work at the bedside, it will be nearly impossible to add a virtual care workflow.
Nursing Operations Team – help manage staffing, define roles & responsibilities between team members and drive collaboration
Education Team – ensure the internal education of facility teams, as well as patients & family members so that they understand the role of the virtual care team members in their visit
Communications Team – tackle marketing and promotion of the program externally, helping to improve the hospital’s reputation as a cutting-edge, patient-experience oriented site of care. Robust virtual care programs can also act as great recruitment tools for future nurses who want to work at systems investing in the latest technology.
Lesson Two: Prepare for and be willing to adapt quickly.
“Be nimble and understand that you might not get it right, right out of the gate. That’s why having a governance structure (like the teams at HMH or a steering committee approach at UCHealth) that can be quick to identify issues and change processes is really important” said Tamera Dunseth Rosenbaum. It’s essential to remember the primary reason why you’re doing this – to provide support to your bedside teams. So, listen to them! Be sure to take in their ideas of what may help and lean into those ideas. Example: HMH, at the suggestion of front-line teams and following suit of many facilities, chose to start with admission & discharge as their first virtual nursing use case. Bedside team members see a lot of value in the ability to offload task-based, administrative work to virtual teams in order to give them more time for hands-on patient care. Furthermore, virtual care team members who are focused specifically on admission & discharge – or other task-based nursing work – can be hyper focused, resulting in spending more time connecting with the patient and often seeing better results. A true win/win! Similarly, UCHealth chose to utilize the virtual nurse answer and triage call lights as a part of their first use case. However, it quickly became apparent that this was adding burden to the bedside with unnecessary steps and communication overload. They took note, quickly changed course, and have since seen greater success. This willingness to adapt & change will be critical to the success of any virtual care program – and to winning the support of your team.
Lesson Three: Build grassroots support.
The bedside team is critical for program success, so giving them a voice is essential. If you don’t know where to start, listen to your front-line nurses and think about what would make their lives easier. Selecting a first use case that directly benefits them will help with long-term program success. As you get to more complex use cases, like TeleICU, virtual deterioration monitoring, TeleStroke and more, trust between virtual and bedside teams will be vital. You can build this trust through making front-line nurses feel a part of the implementation, ideation, and ongoing governance of the virtual nursing program.
Pilot sticking point: staffing the program
Many facilities are already struggling with the chronic staffing shortage, so how do you find the staff for a virtual nursing program? There are two main paths – utilize your existing talent pool to fill virtual roles or work with a staffing partner who can help provide the adequate staff for your program. Let’s discuss each model and the pros & cons of each.
Utilizing your existing talent pool
Tips & things to consider:
Keep job descriptions consistent between on-site and virtual: This allows for flexibility for floating or job sharing between bedside and virtual roles, without creating unnecessary HR hurdles. Also, offering a virtual shift can be a nice benefit to bedside team members – facilities use this to reward seniority, help prevent burnout, and improve staff satisfaction.
Think outside your geography: The nursing shortage is more acute in certain regions. For example, HMH, located in New Jersey, knew that finding nurses in this expensive, metropolitan area would potentially prevent getting their program off the ground. In this instance, working with a partner based out of Tennessee with a richer talent pool, like Equum Medical, made sense for avoiding staffing restraints that would prevent them from getting their program started.
Evaluate the experience level of your current staff: If your facility is predominantly novice nurses, you’ll need your most experienced nurses at the bedside to make virtual care a success. Pulling these nurses into virtual roles could potentially increase travel nurse/overtime use, offsetting potential program ROI. In these cases, outsourcing with a staffing partner may be a better fit for your institution.
Working with a virtual staffing provider
Tips & things to consider:
Speed to go-live: Outsourcing to a trusted provider of virtual nurse staffing may allow you to get started quicker, as they have teams ready to deploy immediately. You can always consider moving things in-house overtime once your program is scaled.
Add more use cases with supplemental staffing: Staffing doesn’t need to be all in-house or all partners! You can take a use case driven approach and use a staffing partner to fill gaps in your team’s experience. Outsource staffing for more complex use cases, like virtual patient deterioration or TeleICU.
Important insight: Marie Foley-Danecker said, “trust is earned—whether you choose to use a partner or have your own staff on the virtual team, the beside team will take time to trust them. Don’t assume that trust will be built immediately just because you use your own staff, or assume trust can’t be built if you outsource.”
Pilot sticking point: funding the program
One of the most talked about reasons for the lack of virtual nursing adoption is the funding. Like many things, leaders struggle to build the business case to pay for it. Some have a misconception that only affluent health systems, or those with a highly favorable payor mix, can afford it. However, HMH and UCHealth both have a challenging payor mix across their system and had to work hard to validate the business case to leadership. Some of their lessons learned include:
Allocating virtual nurse resources to each department.
UCHealth accomplishes this by allocating a small unit of service bump to each department that utilizes the virtual resource. At the care unit level, it can be as small as 0.1 – 0.2 hours per patient day, but UCHealth recommends this path for a few reasons:
Encourages use of the virtual team – if the department is “paying for it anyways”, they’re more likely to utilize the virtual team, helping to improve program utilization.
Helps to spread the cost and avoid constant justification to hospital leadership – When the entire virtual care program is consolidated under a single budget, it becomes a frequent target for scrutiny during budget reviews. Spreading the allocation makes it less likely to face ongoing questioning or review.
Tip: Be sure to have the virtual resource as a separate line item on each nurse manager’s budget to remind them that this is the FTE for the virtual team support. Otherwise, they may hire up to that amount, and the program will be over budget.
Hits budgetary targets – With turnover and vacancy rates most departments can still hit their budgetary targets with this allocation.
Labor savings from virtual sitting can help fund investment in devices for other use cases – like virtual nursing.
Both UCHealth and HMH began their inpatient virtual care programs with virtual sitting. The program was focused on reducing labor costs associated with 1:1 sitters and preventing patient falls. Virtual sitting is a mainstream nursing intervention proven to help facilities replace an average of 70% of 1:1 sitters while reducing falls rates by up to 60%. UCHealth has saved $9M in labor costs with virtual sitting achieving up to 6x ROI. Facilities can utilize these labor savings to help fund the investment in a virtual care device for every patient room.
Pilot sticking point: sufficient infrastructure & technology
Medical quality audio and video devices are fundamental to enable virtual care workflows. Many pilots rely on mobile carts or tablets as a small proof of concept. However, this makes it challenging to scale as it creates additional workflow challenges that impact program success. Because of this, both UCHealth and HMH now standardize patient rooms with a device included and would recommend the same to anyone considering full-scale virtual nursing. This doesn’t mean you always need to add an additional vendor to your portfolio, as this can be a pain point for IT leaders constantly tasked with vendor consolidation.
Their recommendation: Consider your current technology stack.
You may currently have a vendor in your hospital – like your EHR or virtual sitting provider – that can scale into virtual nursing. This can help to get more ROI out of an investment you’re already making. However, be sure they’re equipped to support you. When selecting a virtual nursing technology vendor, consider the following points:
Platform ease of use: Be sure to select a vendor with a platform that supports multiple clinical use cases and is easy for nurses to use.
Support: There is a lot of clinical change & workflow management that comes with implementing a change to the care model, so select a vendor with expertise who will partner with your clinical teams throughout this process. IT teams also have a lot on their plates and shouldn’t be overburdened with implementing a new platform. Consider a vendor who provides robust technical and project management 24/7 support– not just at the time of deployment, but throughout the partnership.
Demonstrated outcomes: When technology advances, new vendors flood the market. In the clinical space, it’s more important than ever to select a partner with demonstrated experience in delivering outcomes for our patients.
Benefits of a fully integrated virtual nursing program
The promise of virtual care is to create a more sustainable, patient-centered healthcare system that leverages technology to deliver high-quality care anytime, anywhere with greater precision and efficiency. With virtual care workflows as a standard part of care delivery, facilities can meet the evolving needs of both patients & healthcare providers by expanding access to care, improving patient experience, reducing caregiver workload, and increasing the efficiency and scalability of staffing. The path to virtual care maturity requires more than just investing in new technology – it also requires organizational alignment, tight change management processes, and buy-in at all levels of the organization. Adopting an intelligent platform that seamlessly blends remote and in-person care with AI-powered virtual nursing is a critical step towards accelerating virtual care maturity.
The healthcare landscape in the U.S. is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by challenges such as nursing shortages, increasing patient complexity, and cost constraints. As a result, nurses are feeling stretched thin, with many considering leaving the bedside — highlighting the urgent need for innovative solutions. Virtual care platforms are emerging as a powerful strategy to address these challenges, optimize care delivery, and enhance both patient outcomes and staff satisfaction.
Hospitals are actively seeking ways to alleviate the burden on bedside staff and improve overall efficiency. 74% of hospital leaders believe virtual workflows will become integral to care delivery models in acute inpatient care, but only 10% of leaders have reached a phase where virtual care is a standard part of care delivery. This indicates a knowledge gap in how to start and scale virtual care programs.
Based on AvaSure’s experience helping over 1,200 hospitals across the U.S. with their virtual sitting and virtual nursing programs, we’ve put together a 7-step roadmap to help you successfully launch your own virtual care program.
1. Identify your facility’s unique pain points
It’s important to identify your biggest challenges within your organization. What’s unique about your facility and where should you focus your efforts?
To help identify your top pain points, gather a group of cross-functional stakeholders, including bedside staff. Ask them to provide feedback on what they are struggling with on a day-to-day basis.
Expect to hear things like:
Recruitment and retention of all levels of staff – from nursing assistants to nurses to highly specialized physicians.
Patient capacity challenges & bottlenecks
Loss of joy and fulfillment leading to burnout for all types of caregivers
Patients’ desire for an integrated experience, bringing consumer expectations to healthcare
Rise in patient complexity
Quality metric declines across key areas
Once you’ve cataloged your challenges, you can get to prioritizing.
2. Prioritize the challenges with the greatest impact
Once you understand the challenges across your facility, identify which is creating the biggest drain on the system. There are a number of use cases for virtual nursing platforms — each with its own potential impact.
Some of the most prevalent use cases & outcomes they’ve been proven to impact include:
Use Case
Potential Outcomes
Virtual Specialty Consults
• Shorten response time for specialty consults • Decrease time to diagnosis and treatment • Improve ED-to-admission time • Retain higher-acuity patients in-network • Reduce unnecessary transfers • Decrease locum costs • Cut down windshield time for specialists
• Reduce rate of falls and falls with injury • Reduce reliance on 1:1 sitters • Reduce labor costs • Prevent self-harm during behavioral health monitoring • Improve patient and staff satisfaction ratings • Reduce elopements • Reduce incidents of harm to caregivers
• Decrease bedside RN documentation time • Improve RN retention • Improve timeliness of admission and discharge from time of order • Reduce number of patients, and time spent, holding in the ED • Improved throughput and reduced overall LOS • Improved patient experience scores on HCAHPS including: Responsiveness, Nurse courtesy, Discharge information clarity
Nurse Mentorship
• Improve RN retention rates, especially new grad retention rates • Improve staff satisfaction • Improve speed to clinical readiness of new nurses • Improve preceptor-to-orientee ratio • Improve eNPS score • Reduce travel/agency spend • Improve response time for questions/escalations
Patient Education
• Improved patient experience scores on HCAHPS including: Responsiveness, Nurse courtesy, Discharge information clarity
High-Acuity Patient Monitoring
• Decrease 30-day readmission rates • Reduce adverse events and hospital acquired conditions such as: CLABSI, CAUTI, HAPI, falls, adverse drug events • Improve sepsis bundle compliance • Decrease code blues • Prevent unnecessary ICU transfers
Pediatric Patient Monitoring
• Reduce cost of monitoring eating disorder patients • Improve staff safety, preventing violence against caregivers • Reduce incidents of self-harm during behavioral health monitoring • Prevent non-accidental trauma
Hospital Operations
• Reduce RN turnover rates • Improve labor cost per unit of service • Improve room turnover times • Improved patient experience
After identifying your facility’s unique pain points and prioritizing the most impactful ones to address, the ideal starting use case will become clearer. We recommend starting with one or two use cases: one use case that has a tangible financial ROI and one that has a positive impact on staff. This helps get staff on board and allows you to build a strong business case for leadership with clear, manageable goals. Once you’ve established a solid foundation, you can add more overtime.
3. Build your business case
Building a strong business case is essential for ensuring a virtual nursing program’s long-term success. At this stage, collaboration between clinical, financial and IT leadership is crucial to demonstrate how the IT infrastructure can support clinical needs—both now and into the future.
Once you’ve identified the virtual nursing platform use case with the most potential impact for your facility, begin to identify goals and benchmarks for your program.
Business Case Highlight: One health system was struggling with high rates of ED boarding in their community. A recent study published in Academics Emergency Medicine demonstrated that it costs $863 more per day to care for a patient in the ED than on a med/surg unit. Based on this alone, this facility was able to establish that decreasing their ED boarding by less than 5%, or 1.2-1.4 borders per day, would offset the costs of installing technology and staffing a virtual nursing program to expediate discharges.1
Best practice from AvaSure’s clinical team: Be sure to include feedback from frontline staff and managers throughout the process—their buy-in is essential for long-term success. It’s important that care teams understand this program is designed to support them, not add extra work or replace jobs.
4. Select a vendor partner
The final step in building your business case is selecting a virtual care partner who can help you achieve your long-term goals. Select a partner with both clinical and technical expertise—one who can not only meet your current needs but also help grow your program over time.
When evaluating vendors, be sure to consider:
Platform ease of use & open architecture Select a vendor with a virtual nursing platform that supports multiple clinical use cases and is easy for nurses to use. No single vendor will be an expert in every use case, so it’s important to select a partner with an open ecosystem. This flexibility allows you to utilize specialty solutions—such as ambient documentation—when their expertise prevails.
Support Implementing a new care model involves significant clinical change and workflow management, so it’s essential to choose a vendor with the expertise to actively partner with your clinical teams throughout the process. IT teams also have a lot on their plates and shouldn’t be overburdened with implementing a new platform. Consider a vendor who provides robust technical and project management with 24/7 support—not just at the time of deployment, but throughout the partnership.
Demonstrated outcomes In any emerging area, many new solutions will become available with little real-world experience. In the clinical space, it’s more important than ever to select a partner with demonstrated experience in delivering outcomes for patients.
Current technology Vendor consolidation is key for maximizing the impact of current spend and reducing technology duplicity. Before bringing on a new vendor, evaluate whether current solutions—such as your TeleSitter® solution—also offer a virtual nursing platform before investing in additional technology.
5. Roll out your first use case
Now that you’ve identified the challenges, started formulating a business case with IT and secured leadership support, it’s time to start building your program. You can start with a single unit or department if preferred.
Starting small is a smart approach, as it allows you to demonstrate early success. Consider launching during peak hours, such as 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., to ease staff into the program and ensure the virtual team is properly staffed. However, stay flexible—real-time feedback might show that this isn’t the most impactful area to address first. Be ready to adapt quickly. Achieving quick wins is crucial for securing buy-in from frontline staff and maintaining leadership support, so an agile approach will be key.
When deciding what unit to start on, think about the following:
Highest churn unit for admission & discharges – may be a high need for offload of documentation
Unit with highest amount of novice nursing staff – may benefit from virtual nursing & mentorship
Unit with highest percentage of travel nurses – help to reduce agency spend and fuel a program ROI
Virtual nursing for specialists that are low staffed – support nutritionists, diabetic management, wound care, social workers/case managers & more
Units with residents using a virtual nurse – Assist with morning rounds and facilitate documentation to communicate with family
High complexity patient unit – allows virtual nurse to do purposeful rounding and be a second set of eyes on patients
Units with deterioration or sepsis protocols and/or wearable monitoring – helps reduce false alarms and identify early signs of adverse events
Make sure to establish a feedback loop to hear directly from frontline staff about how the program is progressing and create a system to share successes both across the facility and with leadership. This positive word of mouth will be key to gaining broader support for the program.
6. Share results with stakeholders and spread the word
After a few weeks or months, ensure you hold a forum with leadership and the cross functional teams involved to update them on your progress. Show how the pilot has driven change against your key goals or metrics. AvaSure’s clinical team will help you pull your data and showcase your progress.
Tip from AvaSure’s Customer Success Team: It’s important to have a baseline before starting so you can demonstrate progress. Be sure to log all relevant metrics, including financials, before implementation. It’s also great to include great catches and stories from the front line leaders. Metric progress is great, but it’s the stories that will win the hearts of your teams.
7. Scale up your program – you’re really doing it!
Now that you’ve demonstrated success (and it was easy!), consider expanding to additional units or use cases. However, be reasonable about what your team can handle at once. Take a slow and deliberate approach, ensuring that your teams have a venue to speak up if it gets overwhelming.
Advice from the AvaSure team: If you’re going to fail, be ready to fail fast. Not every use case will be suitable for every facility. Sometimes, you may identify a need, but virtual care may not be the best solution. Ensure leadership is open to abandoning an idea if it’s adding more burden to teams instead of alleviating it. Your team will appreciate that you prioritize their work experience over forcing something that isn’t a good fit.
Worried about staffing your program as it grows? Learn about hosted options if you are lacking adequate talent to pull from your area.
A successful virtual care deployment can help address labor challenges by optimizing staff productivity, while also driving staff satisfaction and retention. Care teams will feel more supported, spend more time at the bedside, and leave each day feeling accomplished. AvaSure is here to support you through every step of scoping, implementing, and scaling a virtual care and virtual nursing program. With 15% of our staff being RNs, we understand the unique challenges facing care systems today. Our robust clinical team is ready to help with business case development through implementation, metric tracking, and expansion.
1 Canellas, M.M., et al (2024) Measurement of cost of boarding in the emergency department using time-driven activity-based costing. Annals of Emergency Medicine. 84(4);376-385
Virtual care adoption remains limited, with only 11% of hospital leaders reporting standardized programs across their organizations. How can we break through barriers and move beyond pilots? This session explores strategies to achieve ROI, scale clinical programs, and deploy transformative smart rooms.
In-hospital nurses can focus on more critical tasks and direct patient care while virtual nurses handle the routine monitoring and documentation tasks. Patients appreciate more personalized support and the overall hospital experience.
Hackensack Meridian Health has made a conscious effort to identify ways to streamline administrative tasks for its bedside teams, minimizing non-clinical burdens for frontline staff. That’s why the New Jersey health system decided to enhance its nursing staff with a virtual nursing program.
The work of virtual nursing staff decreases the documentation currently completed by bedside nurses and allows for increased direct care interaction. Through virtual nursing, the health system can expand care delivery while ensuring nurses are empowered, supported and able to focus on what matters most – patient care.
Early results show virtual nursing supports faster discharging procedures, coordinated care planning and optimization of in-unit nursing time through the shifting of the documentation burden.
A partner in care
Virtual nursing provides the on-site team with a partner in care, integrating remote, real-time nursing support into existing care teams, said Regina Foley, RN, executive vice president, interim president central region, chief nurse executive, and chief transformation and integration officer at Hackensack Meridian Health.
“The virtual nursing program proposed a model where virtual nurses could assist on-site clinical teams by performing non-clinical tasks and providing additional resources for patient monitoring and discharge support,” she continued. “By sharing these responsibilities with virtual nurses, our bedside nurses can focus more on high-acuity care, thereby reducing their administrative workload and increasing satisfaction.
“Pre-implementation, we worked with telemedicine company Equum Medical and AvaSure to design a program that could scale across different units and integrate seamlessly with our existing hospital systems,” she added. “We envisioned this as a way to improve the overall efficiency of our clinical staff.”
With virtual nurses working remotely, clinical teams could continue to receive timely assistance, access educational resources and streamline communication, all of which are critical in meeting the growing needs of the patient population.
Driving virtual nursing at scale
Virtual nursing at Hackensack Meridian Health is different because out of the gate the health system committed at the executive level to drive virtual nursing at scale.
“The program will be further implemented across several clinical units in support of expedited patient progression and capacity management,” Foley explained. “Virtual nurses will be integrated with the local care teams and can assist with tasks such as monitoring patient vital signs and discharge planning.
“These tasks will be supported through real-time video consultations and, in the future, AI-driven decision support tools, which can help ensure accurate and efficient communication between virtual nurses and bedside staff,” she continued.
The virtual nurses are highly trained registered nurses who work remotely and are directly integrated into the hospitals’ clinical workflow through systems like the electronic health record and patient monitoring platforms.
Change management is key
“The clinical workflow design aspect integral to the Equum Medical model of implementation focuses on change management, and the key steps to ensure we are able to successfully launch and sustain the program,” Foley noted. “The integration with AvaSure’s technology-enabled virtual nurses to assist in decision making and predictive analytics will also support our bedside teams.
“Our future goal is to see metrics associated with increased team member retention and reduced vacancy rates,” she continued. “While early on in our journey, nurses have expressed they are able to focus on more critical tasks and direct patient care, while virtual nurses handle the routine monitoring and documentation tasks.”
At full implementation, the health system hopes to see a reduction in patient discharge times and increased patient throughput across units with virtual nursing. And in the future it hopes to measure patient experience scores. Early evidence suggests patients are appreciating the more personalized support they receive and their overall hospital experience.
For organizations considering virtual nursing, Foley advises starting with a clear understanding of goals and how this technology can align with existing infrastructure.
Making a careful choice for technology
“Your technology choice also needs to be designed for the future and integrates well with your current clinical systems, such as your EHR and patient monitoring tools, so virtual nurses can work seamlessly with your on-site teams,” she said. “Equally crucial is providing education for the virtual nurses to become aligned with the culture of your organization, as well as training and ongoing support for the bedside team, so they are equipped to work together effectively.
“Another piece of advice is to focus on change management – introducing virtual nursing technology will impact workflows, and it’s important to have a plan in place to address any concerns,” she continued. “Engage your clinical teams early in the process, keep lines of communication open, and be prepared to adopt lessons learned from your implementation. The key to success lies in ensuring that virtual nursing is seen not as a replacement but as an enhancement to existing care models.”
Follow Bill’s HIT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill Siwicki Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
As virtual care becomes a permanent fixture in healthcare, organizations must rethink leadership structures to ensure seamless integration across the continuum. Traditional models often struggle to support the cross-functional collaboration required for virtual care success.
In this webinar, clinical executives and industry leaders discuss how forward-thinking organizations are evolving their leadership frameworks – bridging IT, nursing, physician, and operational teams – to drive sustainable virtual care models.
Learn how to structure leadership for long-term virtual care success while addressing challenges such as workforce engagement and technology adoption. Watch now on demand!
As hospitals and healthcare providers face increasing pressures to do more with less, nurses are feeling burnt out. A more novice nurse workforce, in addition to inadequate education and training, higher patient acuity, and rising nurse-to-patient ratios are amplifying this, ultimately leading to nurse staffing shortages. These problems not only affect the well-being of nurses but also impact the quality of patient care.
To address these ongoing issues, hospital systems are reevaluating their workflows and looking at technology solutions to help support their staff. For example, many hospitals are adopting virtual care platforms and AI-enabled tools to help relieve administrative burden. However, before making decisions on solutions, it’s important to really understand the root causes of nurse staffing issues.
Top Reasons for Nursing Shortages:
Nurse Burnout
Nurse burnout is a common consequence of the overwhelming responsibility and pressure placed on nursing staff in hospital systems. Reduced resources and support lead to some nurses deciding to leave the healthcare industry all together. Nurses play a vital role in ensuring that patients’ well-being remains a priority. RNs aren’t the only ones affected; when it comes to Patient Care Technicians (PCTs) and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), health systems are seeing turnover rates in excess of 30%. So, what happens when nurses experience burnout and leave the profession? The remaining nurses within the hospital are stretched too thin with the number of patients they must care for. Job satisfaction begins to decrease, and turnover rates rise, leading to more resources and funds spent to replace and train new staff. As a result, trust in the hospital system starts to fade.
Higher Patient Acuity and Reduced Resources
Another key contributor to the nurse shortage is higher patient acuity and limited training and resources. Patient acuity refers to the level of care or monitoring a patient requires from hospital staff, particularly nurses. The higher the patient’s acuity, the more attention the patient needs. As the patient-to-nurse ratio increases, less attention is given to patients with less demanding issues and health concerns. This leads to diminished patient care, as nurses are unable to provide the attention each patient deserves. Inadequate resources and training leave nurses feeling overwhelmed, making it challenging to provide proper care for all their patients. More experienced nurses are retiring early, leaving junior nurses with a larger workload and less mentorship. This results in stressful situations and higher risk of incidents under the care of the hospital.
Solutions to the Nurse Staffing Shortage
One solution to this issue is to hire additional staff and nurses at the bedside. However, the high cost of hiring travel nurses makes it challenging for hospitals to support their existing nursing staff while meeting the demand for additional help. This is where virtual care can play a key role in providing support, helping optimize the staffing they have. It is crucial for hospital systems to address nurse staffing problems. By providing a better work environment for nurses and offering education and support to nurses’ journeys, hospitals can help the 52% of the nursing workforce who have considered leaving the bedside.
Virtual Care: a Solution to Help the Staffing Crisis
Virtual care is a resource used by healthcare providers and hospital systems to connect patients with doctors, nurses, specialists, and virtual sitting staff remotely. This includes use-cases such as virtual sitting, virtual nursing, and virtual visits. This approach increases efficiency in managing workloads and can help patients receive care more quickly. Virtual care is becoming a prominent resource to help solve staffing issues. It allows nurses to return to the bedside and focus on direct patient care, working at the top of their license. Studies have proven that virtual care, specifically virtual sitting, reduces burnout and improves nurse well-being. A recent survey of 74 nurses from Renton, Washington-based Providence found virtual sitting improved their “emotional labor” and “emotional exhaustion” over in-person sitting. The survey illustrated that virtual sitting improves the well-being of nurses and helps maintain patient safety. Emily Anderson, MSN, RN, PCCN-K, nurse manager at Providence Medical Center in Anchorage, AK said, “Having insightful research into virtual sitting helps us alleviate burnout among our nursing staff and optimize the usage of all our resources to get the right care to the right patient at the right time.” As healthcare systems are evaluating ways to reduce nursing shortages, aid their teams, and deliver the best care possible, solutions like virtual sitting, virtual nursing, and AI need to be considered to support staff and ease the workload and pressure that has been causing the drop in workforce.
What is Virtual Sitting?
Virtual sitting, also referred to as virtual monitoring, is a resource for nurses at the bedside, reducing the need for one-to-one in-person sitting and helping to prevent adverse events for patients. Virtual sitting equips trained safety attendants to use video and audio connections to watch over multiple patients and improve overall safety. Virtual sitting has been used for preventing a variety of adverse events, such as falls, elopement, possible self-harm, suicide ideation, and staff abuse. By using this technology, events that once required 1:1 sitting can now be monitored by a virtual safety attendant, who can safely observe up to 36 patients at a time. This helps reduce the workload of nurses, allowing them to work at the top of their license and focus on higher-acuity patients.
One hospital that successfully implemented virtual sitting amid nurse staffing shortages is St. Luke’s Duluth, a Minnesota-based health system. Like many health systems, St. Luke’s faced challenges such as a tightening labor market, increasing competition for experienced healthcare workers, and rising costs. To provide additional resources and support to their current patient care staff, St. Luke’s implemented a virtual sitting program. They utilize a two-person model: one staff member provides rounding services for patients and staff, while the other staff member observes patients via video monitors. Nursing leaders have found that this approach enhances patient and staff safety and helps support monitoring staff by providing adequate breaks to avoid monitor fatigue.
Another way virtual care has emerged as a solution to nurse staffing problems is through virtual nursing. The American Nursing Association describes virtual nursing as a resource that “support(s) the team at the bedside to alleviate the workload and provide greater satisfaction for both the patients and the nursing staff.”1 Through virtual platforms, nurses and care managers can support teams at the bedside to educate patients, complete admissions and discharge paperwork, automate documentation, and mentor more novice nurses. This allows virtual nurses to have direct, uninterrupted time with patients, leading to less errors or gaps in documentation and freeing up floor nurses to care for their patients at the bedside. It enables a care model where RNs, CNAs, and VRNs (virtual nurses) perform the most appropriate patient care activities based on their skills and experience.
Virtual nursing tools also connect hospital staff with external care providers in real time, ensuring smooth transitions and avoiding delays in securing post-discharge services. Holzer Health System is a recent example of this use case. Using the AvaSure virtual care platform, scarce specialists in neurology, nephrology, diabetes education, and wound care were able to serve patients in two facilities, located 30 miles apart. Natalie Gardner, BSN, RN, CWON, CFCS, describes the benefits: “This has provided a way for me to do video consults with the Jackson facility which saves precious time as well as mileage. The staff take the device to the patient’s room, remove their dressings, and position the patient so that I can see the wound. This leaves me more time to spend with all patients by eliminating the time it would take to drive to Jackson and back.”
Additionally, virtual nurses can provide real-time mentorship, feedback, and confidence to recent graduates and novice bedside nurses, nurturing a nursing workforce for the future.
What is Computer Vision and AI?
While AI is advancing and gaining attention in the healthcare industry, hospital leaders must remember to use applications that can be easily used by their staff, enhance patient safety, and improve the overall hospital experience, all while ensuring that workflow is not disrupted.
There are multiple types of AI currently being used in healthcare settings. Computer vision is a subset of AI that can vastly improve the way hospitals provide care without requiring care providers to compromise on safety and control. One application of computer vision is to help to prevent falls, elopement, and workplace violence by being able to detect factors that are potential warning signs. Following the detection, computer vision alerts a worker to address the issue that may be at hand. The technology is used to augment virtual sitting, helping care team members monitor patients more efficiently, identify patients in need, and make fast, informed decisions that keep them safe.
To know you are using computer vision and AI correctly, keep an eye out for three positive indicators:
Data is used both to prevent immediate incidents and to drive proactive interventions based on insights over time
Real-time alerts are targeted enough to inform the right staff of risk without contributing to alarm fatigue
The program is scalable; AI isn’t just another expense but a way to reduce operational costs and drive savings that fund additional technology investments.
AI in healthcare systems can be a tool but be sure to use the correct collaborative platforms, and track ROI from the start of the AI journey.
A new example of AI in the healthcare space is AvaSure’s virtual care assistant, designed to bridge gaps in communication, prioritize urgent patient needs, and support healthcare teams in delivering timely, high-quality care. The Virtual Care Assistant appears as an avatar, helping triage requests, questions, or needs and assist within the nursing workflow. Requests are categorized into clinical and operational groups, and the assistant, named Vicky, ensures they are directed to the appropriate human personnel or team, helping healthcare systems integrate a reliable, trustworthy, and supportive system for healthcare workers.
Implementing Virtual Care
While there are many virtual care tools and technologies to help reduce the burden on nurses, what does implementation look like in practice? There are multiple phases of the virtual care journey; while it may feel like other hospitals are ahead of the curve, 29% of healthcare leaders established that they have no virtual care solutions, and 39% of hospitals are still in early exploration with virtual nursing. The 5-stage maturity model, developed with the input of 1,100 hospitals and 15+ clinical and hospital IT executives, represents a blueprint for care model redesign led by change-management oriented, outcome-focused leaders. By making virtual care workflows a standard part of care delivery, facilities can meet the evolving needs of both patients and healthcare providers. It can help by expanding access to care, improving patient experience, reducing caregiver workload, and increasing the efficiency and scalability of staffing.
Nurse staffing shortages are a real challenge in hospitals and create a chain reaction that impacts everything, from quality of patient care to the health and well-being of nurses. This issue contributes to burnout and stress, ultimately affecting the care that patients receive. It’s crucial that hospitals find solutions that support nurses and improve the entire healthcare system.
AvaSure’s virtual care platform deploys AI-powered virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions, meets the highest enterprise IT standards, and drives measurable outcomes with support from care experts. By offering our virtual care platform to monitor and support staff and patients, AvaSure can help reduce the burden on nurses, improve patient outcomes, and assist healthcare systems to better improve staff workflow and patient care.
Resources
1Ball, J. (2022, July 1). Virtual nursing: What is it?. Innovation Site. https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/innovation/blog/virtual-nursing-what-is-it/
Enhancing Patient Care and Supporting Nurses: A New Virtual Nursing Program to Improve Healthcare Delivery
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / April 8, 2025 / Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive health network, has partnered with Equum Medical, a leader in enterprise virtual care-enabled clinical services solutions, and AvaSure, a pioneering innovator in patient safety technology, to launch a groundbreaking Virtual Nursing Program. The program will enhance nursing care delivery by integrating cutting-edge technology with compassionate, high-quality care to enhance patient care, support nursing teams, and optimize health care by seamlessly integrating virtual nurses into the patient care environment across Hackensack Meridian Health‘s expansive network.
Addressing Healthcare’s Most Pressing Challenges By integrating Equum Medical’s virtual nursing services, this initiative will provide real time clinical support and streamline workflows. Virtual nurses will assist with critical tasks such as admission support, mentoring and discharge support, allowing on-site clinicians to focus on high-acuity patient care.
“This partnership marks a pivotal moment in our organization’s journey to transform health care through innovative, patient-centered technologies,” said Hackensack Meridian Health Chief Executive Officer Robert C. Garrett, FACHE. “Virtual nursing is an opportunity to expand our care teams’ impact and provide an elevated care experience for our patients.”
Regina Foley, Ph.D., MBA, RN, Executive Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive and Chief Clinical Transformation and Integration Officer of Hackensack Meridian Health, said, “At Hackensack Meridian Health, we have always prioritized high-quality, compassionate care. By partnering with Equum Medical and AvaSure, we are enhancing support for our clinical teams and ensuring that patient care is more focused.”
As a nurse who started at the bedside and progressed to hospital leadership, Kristen Lawton, MSN, Chief Nursing Officer of Equum Medical, recognizes the transformation in nursing care that’s possible: “This program integrates the best of technology with the heart of nursing-human connection. Through virtual nursing, we can expand care delivery while ensuring nurses are empowered, supported, and able to focus on what matters most: patient care. We are proud to work alongside Hackensack Meridian Health and AvaSure to create a scalable, sustainable model for the future of nursing that blends technology with compassionate care, empowering nurses and extending our reach to better support patients and improve care delivery. It’s a key milestone in advancing virtual care.”
Equum Medical: Pioneering Virtual Nursing Solutions Equum Medical is at the forefront of healthcare innovation through its Suite of Acute Care Services. Equum’s expanding portfolio anticipates hospital urgency to respond organizationally to access and capacity constraints through multi-specialty and critical care and hospitalist physician services as well as virtual nursing, tele-sitting, telemetry services, establishing the company as a leader in leveraging telehealth to enhance care delivery and optimize operational efficiencies.
“As healthcare systems continue to face dynamic change, virtual care solutions have never been more crucial,” said Corey Scurlock, M.D., MBA, Founder and CEO of Equum Medical. “At Equum, we are skilled in leading change, and this partnership with Hackensack Meridian Health and AvaSure represents a landmark achievement. Together, we are providing a scalable model that supports clinical teams and enhances the quality of care across hospitals. This partnership highlights the trusted relationships we’ve developed with our customers and our ability to meet the evolving needs of the healthcare industry.”
AvaSure’s Legacy in Patient Safety and Technology Integration AvaSure, a national leader in patient safety and technology solutions, is renowned for its contributions to enhancing care through innovative technology and AI-driven solutions. By integrating AI into the virtual nursing program, AvaSure will empower virtual nurses with real-time decision support and predictive analytics to optimize patient outcomes. This technology will enable virtual nurses to assist bedside teams more effectively, ensuring that patient care is both responsive and comprehensive.
“AvaSure is thrilled to be part of this pioneering collaboration that merges our expertise in patient safety with cutting-edge technology,” said Adam McMullin, CEO of AvaSure. “The integration of AI into virtual nursing represents a major leap forward in how we can support nursing teams by reducing workload burdens, improving the patient experience and meeting the demands of today’s healthcare environment. Through our work with Hackensack Meridian Health and Equum Medical, we are supporting and empowering care teams to deliver safer, more efficient, and patient-centered care.”
The Future of Virtual Care This partnership sets a new standard for virtual nursing programs in health care, aiming to improve care team efficiency and address the rising demand for high-quality care. Through an in-depth and customized clinical design process, each side begins to develop relationships where the virtual nurse becomes an extension of the bedside team.
As part of the program’s rollout, Hackensack Meridian Health will deploy the virtual nursing service across key units, including Med-Surg, with plans to expand enterprise-wide virtual care as the program scales.
About Hackensack Meridian Health Hackensack Meridian Health is New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive health network, delivering the highest quality care across hospitals, outpatient services, and home health programs. With a commitment to advancing healthcare through innovative models, Hackensack Meridian Health is reshaping patient care delivery in New Jersey and beyond. For more information, visit https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/en/.
About Equum Medical Equum Medical is a technology-enabled inpatient clinical services company recognized for its comprehensive acute care portfolio. Specializing in multi-specialty, tele-critical care, hospitalist, virtual nursing, tele-sitting, and telemetry services, Equum leverages advanced telehealth technologies to enhance clinical access and optimize healthcare delivery across hospitals in the United States. By addressing workforce challenges and improving operational efficiency, Equum Medical empowers healthcare systems to elevate patient care, optimize leadership, and achieve positive clinical, operational, and financial outcomes. For more information, visit www.equummedical.com.
About AvaSure AvaSure® is an intelligent virtual care platform that healthcare providers use to engage with patients, optimize staffing, and seamlessly blend remote and in-person care at scale. The platform deploys AI-powered virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions, meets the highest enterprise IT standards, and drives measurable outcomes with support from care experts. AvaSure consistently delivers a 6x ROI and has been recognized by KLAS Research as the #1 solution for reducing the cost of care. With a team of 15% nurses, AvaSure is a trusted partner of 1,100+ hospitals with experience in over 5,000 deployments.
Strengthening AvaSure’s commitment to clinical excellence with a nurse-founded virtual nursing company, expanding innovation across hospital and home-based care settings.
BELMONT, Mich., March 31, 2025 – AvaSure, the leader in AI-powered virtual care solutions, today announced the acquisition of Nurse Disrupted, a nurse-founded virtual nursing platform designed to enhance care delivery across both hospital and home-based settings. This strategic acquisition reinforces AvaSure’s commitment to clinically-driven innovation and marks the company’s second acquisition in nine months, following the purchase of Ouva’s Smart Room AI technology.
“AvaSure is dedicated to delivering clinically led virtual care solutions that empower healthcare providers and improve patient outcomes,” said Adam McMullin, CEO of AvaSure. “Bringing Nurse Disrupted into our portfolio aligns perfectly with our mission, allowing us to expand our support for hospitals and health systems with innovative, scalable virtual nursing capabilities.”
Nurse Disrupted’s platform is designed for rapid deployment, enabling healthcare organizations to quickly implement virtual nursing solutions and achieve measurable ROI through increased efficiency and cost savings in acute care environments. Bre Loughlin, MS, RN, Founder of Nurse Disrupted, will join AvaSure as the Executive Director of Virtual Care Innovation. Her leadership and deep expertise in virtual nursing will play a key role in advancing AvaSure’s mission to innovate for the next era of care—expanding virtual care capabilities, enhancing caregiver support, optimizing workflows, and improving patient safety.
“The synergy between Nurse Disrupted and AvaSure is undeniable,” said Bre Loughlin, MS, RN, Founder of Nurse Disrupted. “Both platforms are built with caregivers in mind, ensuring that virtual nursing is not just a technology solution but a true extension of clinical care. Together, we can bring even more impactful solutions to hospitals.”
As an innovation partner, Tufts Medical Center will collaborate with AvaSure to integrate Nurse Disrupted into AvaSure’s platform, ensuring a seamless, clinically driven solution.
“AvaSure and Nurse Disrupted each bring deep expertise in virtual care, and together, they are creating a solution designed to leverage the impact of our care teams while keeping patients at the center,” said Therese Hudson-Jinks, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services at Tufts Medical Center. “We’re excited to work with them to integrate these innovations and deliver a more intuitive, efficient and impactful virtual nursing experience—one that truly supports frontline caregivers and enhances patient care.”
With this acquisition, AvaSure continues to expand their capabilities from a trusted provider of virtual safety solutions to a partner supporting healthcare providers deployment of advanced, AI-powered virtual care solutions to meet the evolving demands of modern healthcare.
About AvaSure AvaSure® is an intelligent virtual care platform that healthcare providers use to engage with patients, optimize staffing, and seamlessly blend remote and in-person care at scale. The platform deploys AI-powered virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions, meets the highest enterprise IT standards, and drives measurable outcomes with support from care experts. AvaSure consistently delivers a 6x ROI and has been recognized by KLAS Research as the #1 solution for reducing the cost of care. With a team of 15% nurses, AvaSure is a trusted partner of 1,100+ hospitals with experience in over 5,000 deployments.
About Nurse Disrupted Nurse Disrupted is a nurse-founded, nurse-led, and women-owned technology company dedicated to transforming healthcare through innovative virtual nursing solutions. Backed by experts from major healthcare IT vendors and industry advisors, Nurse Disrupted develops technology that enhances patient care, streamlines nursing workflows, and expands access to care. Founded to fill a critical gap – software designed with nurses at the center – the company has facilitated over 42,000 virtual visits with 500+ satisfied nurse providers. To learn more, visit https://nursedisrupted.com/.
AvaSure Media Contact: Rachel Ford Hutman 301-801-5540 Rachel@fordhutmanmedia.com
