“I knew it would happen a little bit, but it has surprised me how much they collaborate,” Ellerbee says.
For CoxHealth, the program has been transformative. The command center is located in the tower where nurses spent two years caring for COVID-19 patients. After the crisis, the space held painful memories for many nurses. Today, it represents a positive new chapter.
“When they walk out the door at the end of the day, they feel good about what they did,” Ellerbee says. “They feel like, ‘I did everything I was supposed to do for my patients. I did a great job today.’”
Adapting to Staffing Challenges and New Technologies
Guthrie Clinic also struggled after the pandemic to recruit enough nurses for its 10,000-square-mile service area in Pennsylvania and New York. It adopted telesitting in 2022, but paying nonlicensed staff to sit with patients was costly and still didn’t meet the need, says Terri Couts, senior vice president and chief digital information officer.
The next iteration – a telesitting platform with built-in AI – had an immediate ROI, enabling one telesitter to monitor 16 people.
DIVE DEEPER: Remote patient monitoring enhances nurse workflows.
“That was the introduction of our virtual care model redesign,” Couts says. “We started thinking, ‘How can we do this differently, and what are the avenues we can impact?’”
Increasing senior nursing support was a priority, especially in the ICU. In early 2023, Guthrie began to expand its virtual care capabilities. First, it data-mined the safety event system to identify focus areas and success measures.
Guthrie then designed a program to support those metrics and began hiring nurses. Virtual care nurses need a different skill set to sit on the other side of the camera, Couts says — not only a substantial amount of experience, but also the ability to teach and mentor.
