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July 29, 2024
WISCONSIN – Due to several factors, Bellin Health is now offering patients a virtual nursing option in some non-emergency situations.
The Green Bay-based health system serves communities throughout Northeast Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at two hospitals and 64 clinics.
A shift in the workforce
The decision to offer a virtual option, Laura Hieb, chief nursing officer with Bellin, said was determined by several circumstances, including an evolving workforce.
“As everyone knows, health care is going through a lot of evolution,” Hieb, who has been with Bellin for 29 years, said. “Along with that, we also know our workforce is experiencing a lot of evolution, so we don’t necessarily have the same workforce historically we’ve had in the past – or we don’t have enough of what we need to meet the demands in the future.”
Based on that assessment, Hieb said healthcare organizations are focused on “transforming their models of care.”
“If we don’t have the workforce, we still need to physically meet the demand for our patients,” she said. “What are other ways we can deliver care and still get high-quality results safely and effectively – virtual nursing.”
Hieb said there are a multitude of reasons leading to workforce changes in health care.
“One is the COVID experience itself,” she said. “It provided different opportunities for individuals, so some people self-selected out of health care or chose different careers. We also know individuals have opportunities to travel more broadly and work remotely in some cases, so that has also had an impact.”
Another reason, Hieb said, is the need for health care has grown.
“If you look at the demographics and our aging population, the demand for health care has increased,” she said. “Also, educating enough healthcare professionals for the future at the rate at which we need them has been an issue. There are some rate-limiting steps when it comes to the number of healthcare providers being produced due to shortages of professors at some of the universities. In the next few decades, our healthcare shortage of workers nationwide could be in the millions.”
Hieb said though virtual nursing has been around for years, the pandemic accelerated the mainstream push of the option.
“The need for us to deliver care in different ways came out of the pandemic,” she said. “Virtual nursing in the acute-care environment came to life then, and that is when we started our work around virtual nursing and the use of this new tool in a hospital-like environment.”
Though the pandemic put a lot of strain on the country and the healthcare industry, Hieb said a positive from it is the accelerated integration of virtual nursing.
“It has been a positive experience since we started earlier this year,” she said.
Acute care, Hieb said, is a type of health care that provides short-term, active treatment for a patient’s critical or life-threatening illness, injury or disease.
She said it can also refer to care during recovery from surgery.
Acute care, Hieb said, is usually provided in hospitals or medical clinics but can also be delivered at home depending on the patient’s needs – or in this case, virtually.
Erika Woulf, team leader for system nursing , has been with Bellin for 21 years, and said she has seen firsthand the need for the industry to adapt.
“We know a lot of nurses are either taking different positions out of the acute setting or looking to retire because of the difficulties associated with the field,” she said.
Transitioning those nurses into virtual nursing opportunities, Woulf said, allows Bellin to retain those nurses and their expertise.
“It gives our experienced nurses flexibility to keep them and retain them into the acute setting by shifting their mindset into more of a relaxed remote shift for the day – so they’re not constantly in the hustle and bustle running around,” she said.
How the program works
Woulf said Bellin started by piloting the program in a few of its medical-surgical areas.
“We’ve been doing this for a few months, but we have a nurse who does a split between bedside shifts and virtual nurse shifts,” she said. “Virtual nurses must be familiar faces. We’ve given our nurses this opportunity to transition all of their skills and knowledge to the patients.”
Woulf said Bellin virtual nurses work at an off-site location near the main hospital campus.
“They act as a second nurse for that patient, and then it also gives support to the bedside nurses, which allows them to complete some of those busier documentation-type pieces,” she said.
Since its inception earlier this year, Hieb said more than 3,000 educational tasks have been completed in the Bellin region, impacting more than 500 patients and giving back nearly 150 hours to bedside staff.
The way it works, she said, is similar to a virtual meeting.
“For example, you have a patient lying in a bed, and at the end of the room there is a TV,” she said. “Above the TV is a camera, and the virtual nurse is sitting somewhere to help with the admission of that patient. Maybe a doorbell sound rings similar to a nurse knocking on the door. The doorbell rings, and the virtual nurse says, ‘hey, Mr. Smith, this is your virtual nurse. Are you at a point where I could visit with you?’”
In turn, the patient, Hieb said, has to accept the interaction.
“Once the patient allows it, the camera turns on, and the patient can see the TV,” she said. “That nurse can see that patient in the bed. They’re able to do all those verbal things not requiring the hands-on aspect – it’s a big help for the bedside nurse who’s running around trying to complete their other duties.”
Hieb said she believes the virtual option helps deliver a couple of things – most importantly focusing on providing a good patient experience.
“We’re measuring that,” she said. “We’ve already seen gains and improvement in our patient scores. We also believe it will help us attract and retain nursing talent because it’s more of a competition right now for the workforce. We’re already seeing the vacancy rates go down and seeing improvement in the retention of our nurses.”
Hieb said virtual nursing options aren’t just for hospitalized patients either.
“It’s also used in the ambulatory setting, which means outside of the hospital,” she said. “For example, a lot of behavioral health interactions can be done virtually. A patient could be sitting at their house miles away and he/she could have a conversation with the provider virtually. It also allows people who live further away from a clinic the chance to stay home and not drive, which we know can also be a barrier.”
Hieb said virtual nursing is another tool in the toolbox that can help Bellin engage with patients.
“So far, the patients say they love it,” she said. “Some may say, ‘you know what? I’d rather see my provider face to face,’ while others want it virtual. We can do either with this tool. It’s a new way to deliver our services. We even have whole families who jump on a Zoom call so they hear what’s going on with their loved ones.”
The option, Hieb said, allows Bellin to use technology to enhance what it already does.
“Ultimately, helping (us) provide better outcomes, better experiences for our patients and nurses and better quality of care,” she said.
As a result of the virtual nursing option, Hieb said nurses and patients have said they get to spend more time discussing things.
“Erika has done an incredible job with this rollout,” she said. “The nurses have said, ‘oh my gosh, I have never had the ability to spend this much time doing patient teaching.’ It’s been a big positive from both lenses.”
As the virtual nursing program continues to expand, Hieb said the hope is to have nurses specific to each unit, allowing for even deeper levels of expertise and care.
