Topic: Virtual Sitting

How virtual sitting can provide a solution to hospital staff shortages

patient fall

Cutting-edge technology is revolutionizing patient care, preventing falls, amidst unprecedented turnover rates and rising acuity

By Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN

Everyone is talking about the shortage of registered nurses, but there’s less discussion about the shortage of unlicensed bedside caregivers in hospitals.

When it comes to patient care technicians (PCTs) and certified nursing assistants (CNAs), health systems are seeing turnover rates exceeding 30 percent. These caregivers are crucial for supporting sustainable care delivery models in hospitals. RNs cannot work at the top of their license if there are not enough unlicensed caregivers to delegate tasks to.

Because of this, it is not surprising that patient safety has been compromised in many ways. Patient falls are the most costly and frequent inpatient adverse event and can serve as a proxy for many other safety events that plague patient care. From 2020 to 2022, sentinel event falls have increased by 253 percent, according to The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Data 2022 Annual Review.

Because of this, hospitals are under pressure to develop care systems that address the shortage of PCTs and CNAs and can no longer afford the unsustainable practice of utilizing one-to-one sitters for patient safety.

Virtual sitting

Bedside sitters have been historically used to provide one-to-one observation for patients at high-risk for falls and other safety events, but there is scant evidence to support the practice, and this one-on-one care is extremely costly to hospitals.

Because of the costs and general unfeasibility of employing one-to-one sitters, virtual sitting has become mainstream in acute care. The practice enables a single trained employee to monitor multiple patients simultaneously, preventing falls, elopement, violence against caregivers and many other adverse events. Today, two-way video and more versatile configurations of room devices are enabling a wide range of virtual monitoring advances, resulting in a dramatic decrease in sitter use.

Here are the most recent publications from four hospitals that have successfully implemented virtual sitting programs.

Gaylord Specialty Healthcare. As a long-term acute-care hospital, Gaylord placed a particularly high emphasis on promoting patient independence and rehabilitation, but this increases patients’ risk for falling. The hospital’s demand for sitters started to outpace supply and the program grew more costly.

To respond to the more challenging macroeconomic environment, Gaylord implemented a monitoring program in which mobile telemonitors were deployed to patient rooms for continuous visual monitoring by virtual safety attendants. The goal was to decrease dependence on one-on-one sitters without compromising patient safety.

Gaylord assessed the effectiveness of the program by conducting a three-year study comparing 20 months of baseline data with 20 months of intervention data. At the end of the period, the data showed with statistical significance that the virtual sitting program had driven a 90 percent decrease in sitter hours and a 25 percent reduction in falls.

Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital. A community hospital within a greater health system in Southeast Texas, Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital implemented a virtual sitter program to increase resources for bedside staff, meeting the changes to the healthcare system following the COVID-19 pandemic.

To guide implementation, an interdisciplinary team headed by a nurse leader collaborated with other hospitals within the system to adopt best practices tailored to the hospital’s specific needs.

The hospital’s fall rate in 2022 dropped from an average of 1.43 to 0.98 per 1000 patient days post implementation, which is a 30 percent decrease. There were no falls by monitored patients. The hospital estimated that the program helped to save $295,000 in staff costs. Because of the success of the virtual sitting program, Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital plans to expand from virtual sitting into virtual nursing.  

TidalHealth. For at-risk patients, TidalHealth had been running a patient companion program with one-on-one companions, but the $1.1 million initiative had proven to be expensive and unsuccessful. To reverse the trend, the health system implemented virtual sitting in two hospitals after modifying workflows and training staff.

The program dramatically reduced in-person sitter hours in both hospitals by 58 percent and 70 percent resulting in a cost savings of $425,000 in the first six months alone.

Upstate University Hospital SUNY. Although Upstate University Hospital had a virtual sitting program in place, the hospital was under-utilizing the technology they had purchased and falling short of its one-on-one sitter reduction targets. To increase utilization of virtual sitting and decrease sitter usage, nursing leaders developed and implemented a pilot program in four inpatient units that included a mandatory two-hour trial of virtual sitting before deploying a one-on-one sitter when the bedside RN was unsure how the patient would respond to virtual sitting.  Most of the mandatory trials were successful in enabling the patient to continue with a virtual sitter and negating the need for a one-on-one sitter.

After completing a successful pilot, Upstate University rolled out the mandatory two-hour trial policy for hospital-wide implementation. After four months of trending data, the team found that the program reduced sitter usage by an average of 7.1 full-time equivalents, which translates to an additional 33 percent decrease of one-to-one sitter utilization just by optimizing the use of the technology they had already purchased.

The experiences of these four hospitals demonstrate the value of virtual sitting in decreasing labor costs while improving patient safety. As financial headwinds increasingly force health systems to explore alternative ways of delivering care, we will see more and more examples of how virtual sitting can help hospitals solve some of their most persistent problems.

Virtual sitting solutions offer a proven approach to alleviating staffing shortages in addition to supporting the bedside care team so everyone is working at the top of their license.

Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN is chief clinical officer of AvaSure.

See the article on Health Data Management

AvaSure Symposium to Feature Health System Leaders Addressing Real-World Successes in Virtual Sitting, Virtual Nursing and The Latest Virtual Care Trends, Such As AI

Seventh annual in-person event will feature ten-plus customers discussing virtual sitting and virtual nursing

Customers attending include St. Luke’s Duluth, Michigan Medicine, Beacon Health, Baptist Medical Center South, Madonna Rehabilitation, Ascension Texas, UCHealth, and Corewell Health

BELMONT, Mich., Oct. 4, 2023 — AvaSure, the market leader in acute virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions, announced today that the full agenda is now available for the 2023 AvaSure Symposium, an in-person event for healthcare and nurse leaders seeking an unparalleled opportunity to connect, learn, and engage around virtual care.

The in-person event, designed to elevate healthcare leadership journeys with innovative and educational programming on AI, virtual sitting and virtual nursing, will feature at least ten customer speakers. Organizations with executives speaking at the event include: St. Luke’s Duluth, Michigan Medicine, Beacon Health, Baptist Medical Center South, Madonna Rehabilitation, Ascension Texas, UCHealth, and Corewell Health.

This year’s AvaSure Symposium will be held October 25–26 at the GVSU Richard M. DeVos Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

To register for the Symposium, click here.

Attendees will gain insights from clinical experts and customer success stories, while rediscovering the power of face-to-face interactions through networking with esteemed healthcare and nurse leaders to exchange ideas and build relationships that extend beyond the confines of a screen.

The vibrant in-person event features numerous compelling educational sessions, including:

  • Saving Lives Virtually: How to Keep Suicide Risk Patients Safe: Join us for a critical discussion on safeguarding the well-being of low-to-medium-risk suicide patients and pediatric patients through virtual sitting. Beacon Health and Baptist South will share why this approach works, discuss the policies that support it, and the transformative impact it has had on their organization.
  • Celebrating Remarkable Results: A Customer’s Story of Reducing Falls: Nurse leaders from St. Luke’s Duluth will share their inspiring story behind the strategies, challenges, and triumphs of reducing patient falls and achieving recognition in patient safety.
  • A Single Virtual Care Platform Designed for Growth: How UCHealth Scaled Virtual Sitting to Virtual Nursing to Save Lives: Learn how UCHealth innovatively designed a virtual hospital, making an impact on 1.4 million lives through the combination of virtual sitting and virtual nursing programs.
  • Navigating Staffing Challenges: The Equum Medical-AvaSure Success Story: This session will explore how Madonna Rehabilitation faced staffing issues and partnered with Equum Medical to achieve remarkable results.
  • Fostering Excellence: Cross-Functional Teams in Virtual Care: Corewell Health’s Chief Information Officer will share firsthand insights into their collaborative journey, innovative strategies, and the pivotal role technology plays in shaping the future of healthcare.

Other reasons to attend include:

  • Dynamic learning, live: Immerse yourself in a live, dynamic learning environment. Renowned speakers, including customers and healthcare leaders, will share the latest insights and strategies, providing actionable takeaways for your leadership toolkit.
  • Hands-on workshops: Dive into interactive workshops led by AvaSure’s clinical staff experts and nursing leaders. Experience hands-on learning, acquire new skills, and gain practical insights to excel in your healthcare practice.
  • Array of insights, in-person: Break down hospital borders by engaging with healthcare leaders from across the country, all under one roof. Embrace diversity, broaden your perspective, and foster a global IT and nursing community.

“We are thrilled the AvaSure Symposium is returning to an in-person event in 2023 and can’t wait to reconnect with our wonderful nursing colleagues,” said Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN, Chief Clinical Officer, AvaSure. “Healthcare and nurse leaders who attend the Symposium will have the opportunity to experience the power of in-person interaction and immerse themselves in a world of knowledge and inspiration while learning more about virtual care options to enhance patient care outcomes.”

About AvaSure

AvaSure provides the leading virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions to systems with nursing and staffing shortages that are challenged to significantly reduce labor costs without sacrificing patient health outcomes. Recognized by KLAS Research as the leader in reducing the cost of patient care, AvaSure is the pioneer in providing best-in-class, video-based AvaSure TeleSitter® and TeleNurse™ solutions. As a trusted partner of more than 1,100 hospitals, AvaSure combines virtual safety attendants, virtual nurses and other providers on a single platform to enhance clinical care without placing any additional burdens on existing staff. To learn more about AvaSure visit www.avasure.com.

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Media Contact:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

AvaSure Recognized as Leader in KLAS Virtual Sitting & Nursing Report for Driving ROI and Improving Patient & Staff Outcomes

Customers commend AvaSure’s proven ability to drive outcomes, ROI, scalability and value continued investments, such as AI

BELMONT, Mich., Sept. 21, 2023 —A new Segment Insights report from KLAS revealed that AvaSure customers have recognized the virtual care platform’s ability to improve staff and patient outcomes while driving better financial performance and significant return on investment.

The report, the first-ever by KLAS on virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions, is based on structured interviews of vendors’ customers. The report designated AvaSure as the top performer in the market, noting that AvaSure is an established, recognizable name, and that customers recognize the platform’s ability to drive outcomes, saying that in addition to reducing patient falls, the solution reduces tube/line interferences, prevents patients from taking outside drugs, and ensures staff safety by preventing patient aggression.

The KLAS report also found that customers have experienced positive financial outcomes from being able to scale sitters’ capacity to observe patients and prevent adverse events. In addition to driving significant ROI, the AvaSure platform was rated at 8.2 out of 9 by customers in terms of getting their money’s worth from the investment. Additionally, the 2022 KLAS Emerging Solutions Top 20 Report ranked AvaSure first for the greatest impact on reducing the cost of care.

“AvaSure’s use cases for telesitting provide a huge return on investment,” said one director, July 2023. “Instead of having multiple in-person sitters, we are using one person. We have economies of scale, and those give us that financial return. Even if we wanted to pay for in-person sitters, there is a scarcity of resources to get them. AvaSure has improved our patient outcomes for falls, fall prevention, and staff retention. It is frustrating when nurses don’t have the resources they need. AvaSure has been an avenue for our nurses to get those resources through different means.”

Separately, the report revealed that respondents overwhelmingly agree that virtual sitting and nursing solutions have been helpful in addressing staffing shortages. These solutions have helped organizations to increase their observation capacity from a 1:1 sitter-to-patient ratio, enabling one sitter to now observe several patients, freeing up skilled clinical staff previously assigned to sitting roles, and allowing them to apply their skills and expertise more meaningfully where needed the most.

“This KLAS report validates that AvaSure’s virtual care platform is helping customers achieve genuine improvements to patient outcomes while alleviating staffing shortages and reducing costs,” said Adam McMullin, CEO, AvaSure. “Customers continue to choose AvaSure because our solution is unmatched in its ability to combine intelligent workflow designs and thoughtful enhancements such as AI, integrations, cloud-based offerings, and flexible devices at scale. Our team is committed to supporting our customers at every stage of their virtual care journey, ensuring they have the tools and guidance they need to succeed.”

The latest report is not the first time AvaSure has been recognized by KLAS. For example, earlier this year, AvaSure earned top marks from KLAS in a Second Look Performance report, which found that all interviewed customers were satisfied to highly satisfied with AvaSure’s solution, noting AvaSure has continued to improve and deliver on its product, and that 100% of respondents would buy again.

KLAS is a research organization that helps healthcare providers make informed technology decisions by offering impartial vendor performance information.

 

About AvaSure

AvaSure provides the leading virtual sitting and virtual nursing solutions to systems with nursing and staffing shortages that are challenged to significantly reduce labor costs without sacrificing patient health outcomes. Recognized by KLAS Research as the leader in reducing the cost of patient care, AvaSure is the pioneer in providing best-in-class, video-based AvaSure TeleSitter® and TeleNurse™ solutions. As a trusted partner of more than 1,100 hospitals, AvaSure combines virtual safety attendants, virtual nurses and other providers on a single platform to enhance clinical care without placing any additional burdens on existing staff. To learn more about AvaSure visit www.avasure.com.

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Media Contact:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

Decreasing falls and cutting costs in the LTACH setting

graph of fall rate going down

Gaylord Specialty Healthcare reveals inspiring results with the TeleSitter® solution

During AvaSure’s Digital Summit, Henry C. Hrdlicka, PhD, Director of Research, Milne Institute for Healthcare Innovation presented recent findings from Gaylord Specialty Healthcare’s TeleSitter® program. Watch here.

Inpatient falls are a universal safety concern in healthcare facilities, and their consequences can be devastating. This is especially a concern in the LTACH setting where individual risk is increased by anticipated longer lengths of stay & early and frequent encouragement of patient mobility. Up until now, 1:1 patient sitters have been the primary option for ensuring patient safety, however, staffing 1:1 sitters is a costly solution that can pull much needed hands from the bedside.

“Often the demand for 1:1 sitters outpaces staff availability. This accrues a massive financial burden on any institution. These factors have been further exacerbated due to ongoing national staffing shortages as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. This led us to the conclusion that an alternative needed to be found.”

Henry C. Hrdlicka, PhD, Director of Research, Milne Institute for Healthcare Innovation

Gaylord Specialty Healthcare, a rehabilitation-focused nonprofit healthcare system, embarked on a study to assess the impact of continuous virtual monitoring on inpatient falls and 1:1 sitter usage. In partnership with the Milne Institute for Healthcare Innovation, the study was carried out at Gaylord Hospital, a 137-bed Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTACH), in Connecticut. The results of this research not only demonstrated a profound impact on patient safety but also revealed a promising opportunity for significant cost savings that can benefit healthcare facilities across the board.

Community Health Systems to expand virtual sitting to 29 hospitals

AvaSure logo

Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems plans to expand virtual sitting to 29 hospitals as the program has been successful in preventing patient falls.

The 78-hospital system started piloting the sitting platform from telehealth company AvaSure in 2021 at two locations. The program later expanded to 15 CHS hospitals in Arkansas, Indiana and Tennessee, and the health system plans to roll it out at another 12 facilities by the end of 2023. No patients in the program reported any falls with injuries in 2022.

“We really are able to clearly create some efficiencies and redeploy caregivers back to the bedside,” Lynn Simon, MD, president of healthcare innovation and chief medical officer of Community Health Systems, told Becker’s.

Remote “sitters” operate out of a CHS hospital in Tennessee, each monitoring 12 to 16 high-risk patients at a time for signs they might be getting up or otherwise be in danger of a fall.

“They have eyes on the patients at all times,” Dr. Simon said. “There’s also two-way audio, so the person watching can audio into the room and talk and have a conversation with the patient, ask them if they’re uncomfortable, remind them to stay in bed. That conversation seems to be the difference. It’s more than just alerting the nurse — that does happen when the patient appears to be trying to get out of bed — but it’s really about the back-and-forth communication with the patient that helps keep them safe and keeps them from falling.”

Since implementing the program, the health system has experienced up to a 76 percent drop in falls at some hospitals, Dr. Simon said.

Community Health Systems’ big bet on virtual sitting comes at a time when many health systems are going all in on virtual nursing. CHS has had some “small” virtual nursing pilots, helping with things like patient admission and discharge, but is still in the “exploration stages” for that model, Dr. Simon said.

“The biggest value that we’re seeing that we’ve been able to scale is the virtual sitting, but we do intend to continue to iterate with our other virtual nursing opportunities,” she said.

See the article on Becker’s Health or watch the webinar to get the full story.

KLAS Report Recognizes AvaSure as a Complete Virtual Care Platform That Improves Patient Safety while Reducing Costs & Staff Workloads

KLAs Customer Rated badge

Survey of AvaSure customers reveals that 100% would purchase virtual care platform again, 72% achieve outcomes in six months or less.

BELMONT, Mich., Aug. 23, 2023 — AvaSure, the market leader in acute virtual care and remote safety monitoring, announced today that a new report from KLAS revealed high customer satisfaction with the company’s virtual care platform. KLAS reported on AvaSure in September 2021, and the new report offers a second look at how the overall customer experience has improved over the last two years.

The Second Look Performance report, which is based on structured interviews with AvaSure customers, revealed that all interviewed customers are satisfied to highly satisfied, saying AvaSure has continued to improve and deliver on its product, and that every respondent would buy again.

Customers highlighted the AvaSure platform’s ability to deliver a noticeable improvement on patient-safety outcomes, reduce falls and fall-related injuries, decrease the number of sitters required, and catch patient complications earlier. 72% of surveyed customers told KLAS they achieve outcomes in six months or less and 36% achieve outcomes immediately.

Additionally, AvaSure’s platform received top marks from customers across a wide range of categories, including ease of use, quality of implementation, quality of training, integration approach, and delivering its money’s worth. 100% of AvaSure customers told KLAS they would purchase the virtual care platform again.

“We are proud to have earned top marks from KLAS again and would like to thank our customers for their partnership in improving patient safety while reducing staff workloads,” said Adam McMullin, CEO, AvaSure. “AvaSure provides the most clinically proven solution on the market and we are committed to helping our customers achieve a step function improvement in their results. Beyond industry-leading technology, AvaSure has a dedicated clinical team that partners with our customers and is even further ahead when it comes to clinical evidence of success in solving patient and staff safety and nursing resource challenges that health systems are facing today.”

AvaSure offers an innovative virtual care model that integrates virtual staff into current clinical workflows to enhance the work experience for bedside nurses and elevate the quality of patient care they deliver while also reducing labor costs.

AvaSure customer quotes from the KLAS report:

  • “AvaSure has done a really good job because they have made their hardware nimble enough to support not only virtual observation functions but also virtual nursing concepts. The vendor is making resources available for a variety of different services and applications.” — Vice President, August 2023
  • “AvaSure’s chief nursing officer drives research and is very interested in it. That is a really positive thing about the company because they are not just about the product. They are really trying to focus on patient safety and the outcomes. That is important. AvaSure should continue to drive things, especially as they are looking at their AI solution, pushing alerts to the staff, and integrating with EMRs that hospitals are using.” — Director, August 2023
  • “Our sitter hours have improved while using this solution. We have been able to compare the sitting hours to the camera hours. The reduction in fall rates at the hospitals is something we are tracking, and according to the literature, everybody who has used this tool has reported a reduction in falls. There is also a reduction in elopements and medical device interference.” —Director, August 2023

Additionally, customers noted that AvaSure’s strengths include:

  • Hardware is more versatile beyond virtual observation
  • Product research is focused on patient safety outcomes
  • Outcomes from the platform are clear and quickly realized

KLAS is a research organization that helps healthcare providers make informed technology decisions by offering impartial vendor performance information.

AvaSure can be used for more than preventing patient falls. Download a new AvaSure white paper on virtual monitoring for low-to-moderate suicide risk patients. 

About AvaSure

AvaSure provides the leading hospital virtual care platform to systems with nursing and staffing shortages that are challenged to significantly reduce labor costs without sacrificing patient health outcomes. Recognized by KLAS Research as the leader in reducing the cost of patient care, AvaSure is the pioneer in providing best-in-class, video-based AvaSure TeleSitter® and TeleNurse™ solutions. As a trusted partner of more than 1,000 hospitals, AvaSure combines remote patient monitors, virtual nurses and other providers on a single platform to enhance clinical care without placing any additional burdens on existing staff. To learn more about AvaSure visit www.avasure.com.

See the Press Release here.

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Media Contacts:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

4 Key insights from AvaSure’s first digital summit

AvaSure Symposium ft. Lisbeth Votruba on stage

Last week AvaSure hosted our 1st Annual Digital Summit: Start, Scale & Succeed with Virtual Sitting. During this one-day educational event, we featured over 10 current AvaSure customers to share their best practices & learnings from deploying virtual sitting programs.  Read on to hear how they were able to improve outcomes, optimize their labor force and protect staff all while helping to reduce costs.

There were so many exceptional discussions centered around today’s challenges – staffing being front and center. We know that hospitals across the U.S. are struggling to find enough nurses and support staff to run efficiently, so technology is helping to bridge the gap. With the AvaSure TeleSitter® Solution, hospitals are replacing the need for traditional 1:1 sitters by using Virtual Safety Attendants (VSAs) to monitor up to 12 patients remotely while reducing adverse events. Seem too good to be true? The results just may be.

How Valley Health Reduced the Use of 1:1 Sitters While Decreasing Falls

Valley Health System shared their story of starting a TeleSitter program four years ago that has gone on to help:

  • Reduce falls with injury by 50%
  • Save over $1 million dollars from combined fall reduction and sitter cost reduction
  • Achieve an 80% device utilization across the system

When discussing why they chose to work with AvaSure, they said, “We wanted to work with the experts to show us how this has worked at other organizations. Other organizations have made mistakes, had those mistakes corrected and so we are the beneficiaries of that. We wanted to focus on what we are good at. What we aren’t good at is setting up our own sitter program. But, what we are good at is knowing our needs, selecting the best partner out there and picking someone who could address our needs today & help us go beyond that in the future.” AvaSure has helped over 1,000 customers just like Valley Health start their programs and we have the clinical expertise to help make it as turnkey as possible for your staff.

Use Cases for TeleSitter solutions extend beyond just falls

Success of virtual sitting extends beyond just the acute care setting, Gaylord Specialty Healthcare gave a sneak preview of yet-to-be published results of how AvaSure helped optimize their LTACH program.

While virtual sitting programs may be best known for helping reduce falls, their use extends far beyond that one use case. We heard from Rachel Krajnovich, MSN, RN-BC, Director of Clinical Operations at HCA Kingwood on utilizing virtual monitoring for suicide risk & behavioral health patients.

  • Suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S. across all age groups and the number of patients requiring suicide monitoring in acute care has increased 165% since 2019
  • 45% of hospitals that utilize AvaSure have monitored over 75,000 suicide risk patients across 45 states

This lesser-known use case can be extremely effective in helping to monitor low and moderate suicide risk patients, and is proven to be equally effective to in-person sitters for this population(1). These customers shared best practices regarding how they evaluate patients to be placed in the program, how they helped to get physicians and staff on board with utilizing virtual monitoring for this high-risk population and how it has helped them extend access of needed yet scarce mental health resources in ERs today.

Expanding to other use cases is just one example of scaling your program, you can also help to extend the reach of your program across various facilities in your system, helping you to achieve greater scale and efficiency. Providence Oregon Region shared how they built a ‘hub and spoke’ model – which involves having devices across multiple facilities with monitor staff at one, centralized hub watching patients across the system. This can help create a highly effective staff that is able to protect patients across the system and optimize your device utilization. Hear how they were able to achieve an average stat alarm response time of 12-15 seconds, well below the national average of 17 seconds.

Virtual Safety Attendants are Key to Program Success

 As always, one of our most popular sessions was best practices from Virtual Safety Attendants – sharing how they’ve built teams of heroes that work 24/7 to connect with patients, keep them safe, keep them calm & help assist them on their recovery journey. We heard from a VSA, Tom Dezell from Froedtert, who shared when thinking back on advice he’d give himself on his first day:

 “That I cannot let my fear of something happening to the patient interfere with my taking care of the patient. In other words, I can’t respond out of fear, I have to respond out of patient advocacy and confidence.”

His demonstrated commitment to his patients brought emotions to all who listened as he spoke so passionately and eloquently about the time he spends helping patients.


What Does the Future of Virtual Care Look Like?

We closed the day with Claire Zangerle, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAONL, FAAN, Nurse Executive with CMZ Strategies, LLC discussing the future of virtual care with AvaSure Chief Clinical Officer, Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN. In discussing her hopes for the future of nursing in this new virtual care environment she said,

“It’s our time as nurses to step up and make sure we’re listened to. We have to tell people how great it is to be a nurse and what it means to be a nurse. We’re in danger of people saying that the job is too hard to do. Everyone wants to work remote now, you can’t be hands on and work remote. You have to promote the value of human interaction, it’s so important. We know we don’t have enough staff and enough people to do human interaction whether it’s in a hospital, ASC, community health center, we know we don’t have enough people. We need to meet patients where they are, and we need to think of new ways to meet patients. We aren’t thinking about this because we don’t have enough staff, it’s also because that’s what patients want. We are looking at ways to make sure they get what they want.”

Nursing has always been and will always be an essential and noble profession that relies on hands-on patient care, clinical expertise & empathizers who care deeply about the lives of their patients. AvaSure believes that nurses should always be central to care, which is why we featured nurses throughout our summit – as moderators, hosts & panelists to demonstrate the vital role they play in the shifting care model moving forward.

We look forward to sharing more insights, recaps and full session replays of Digital Summit for those who have missed it, and we look forward to seeing you IN-PERSON at our upcoming Annual Symposium October 25th – 26th in Grand Rapids, Michigan – learn more here.

1 Kroll, D. S. et al., (2020). Virtual monitoring of suicide risk in the general hospital and emergency department. General hospital psychiatry, 63, 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2019.01.002