Virtual Connected Care: A Distinctive Care Delivery Model

A rapidly emerging topic in nursing and health care literature is virtual nursing. New hospital care delivery models are being developed largely in response to the shortage of registered nurses willing to work in the inpatient setting and proposed as the way to ensure safety in staffing in that context. One national health care system successfully presented a case for the implementation of an innovative model that would team a bedside nurse, a dedicated care partner and leverage technology to deliver adult acute care on inpatient units. The model was developed, prototyped and tested, with outcomes providing the impetus for a system decision to scale and sustain the model across all acute care hospitals. An innovative implementation team, guided by a focused change methodology and grounded in the core values of the organization, was established to implement the model across an initial 2500 beds. Principles of Human Caring Science and Relational Coordination were both cornerstones of the model and enablers of the change process. This paper will address details of the model, change tactics, implementation, learnings through scaling across an enterprise, and the implications for research.