Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare has a virtual nursing command center in Colorado that monitors patients across eight hospitals in two states, CBS News Colorado reported May 11.
The 65 staffers for HCA subsidiary HealthOne, based in Denver, watch patients' vitals remotely, help with paperwork and check on high-risk patients via video, according to the story.
"A lot of the areas that keep [nurses] out of the room and talking with the patient right now, the behind-the-scenes kind of work that they have to do, we're going to be able to eliminate a lot of that," Ryan Thornton, BSN, RN, chief nursing executive for HCA's continental division, told the news outlet. "That'll put the nurse with the patient at the bedside, where they want to be."
The virtual nurses also help train younger in-person nurses, according to the report.