Initiating Virtual Nursing in General Inpatient Care

With increased demands for inpatient care and limited nursing resources, bedside RNs at one health care system were challenged to find experienced nurse colleagues to provide mentorship when they needed assistance in executing best practices. A virtual RN (ViRN) role was created to support bedside RNs and patients on designated general care inpatient units. The ViRN provided real-time virtual clinical guidance to bedside RNs and actively surveilled patients. Bedside RNs were surveyed by email to gauge the utility and their perceptions of integrating ViRNs into the nursing care team. RNs reported that they valued the consistent availability of having the ViRNs' expert nursing knowledge and virtual assistance with nursing tasks.