As more health systems are turning to virtual nursing programs, the American Hospital Association gave five tips to organizations launching virtual nursing programs in a Feb. 28 news release:
- Be inclusive from the start: Organizations rolling out virtual nursing programs should ensure they are receiving input from clinical workers, IT staff and the quality assurance team.
- Allow time for relationship building: It will take time for patients to trust virtual nursing, and hospitals need to allow time for the type of information sharing necessary for a successful virtual nursing program to develop.
- Anticipate technological difficulties: Hospitals should plan for IT outages and find a work-around.
- Do not be afraid to change workflows: Planned workflows may not work as well in real life, and organizations should not be afraid to find new ones that work better.
- Make sure buildings have adequate bandwidth: If a hospital does not account for bandwidth, it will have to continually expand capacity.