Implementing Virtual Nursing in Health Care: An evaluation of effectiveness and sustainability

As SARS-COV-2 or COVID-19 (COVID) increasingly spread across the world, nurses in the United States increasingly became at risk for contagion, as well as experiencing higher levels of anxiety and concerns related to safety in the workplace. The rise of COVID and the underlying desire to secure protections for healthcare workers created a higher demand for technology and online workspaces where clinicians can provide sustainable care for patients while also reinforcing the need for staff safety. To streamline the patient discharge process, increase patient safety, comprehension, and satisfaction, while simultaneously preventing undesirable readmission rates, a Virtual Nurse application, via remote monitoring and video capabilities, is expected to take over indirect patient tasks such as patient education, discharge instructions, pain monitoring, telemonitoring, communication with the primary nurse and others. By automation, the Virtual Nurse will alleviate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, thus, freeing up nurses to focus on direct patient care tasks and human-to-human quality interaction. This study strives to investigate the feasibility of the implementation of a Virtual Nurse role in the patient discharge process performed at a large healthcare system. This study will start by presenting a brief literature review focused on the technologies currently being employed in healthcare settings around the U.S. Our study aims to present the methodologies utilized in data acquisition and analysis, as well as population sample characteristics.