Scaling Virtual Care to Improve Patient Safety, Reduce Burnout, and Elevate Care Delivery

As health systems face compounding pressures—clinical workforce shortages, increasing patient acuity, and heightened expectations around quality and safety—virtual care has evolved from a tactical fix to a strategic imperative. The organizations that will thrive long-term aren’t just deploying virtual care at the unit level—they’re scaling it system-wide, across departments and disciplines, to fundamentally transform care delivery.

But expanding virtual care isn’t as simple as plugging in new technology. True scale requires strong governance, standardized workflows, and multidisciplinary collaboration to ensure virtual care is both effective and sustainable.

Virtual Care as a Multidisciplinary Model

It’s important to distinguish between “virtual nursing” and “virtual care.” The most successful programs look beyond nursing to engage multidisciplinary teams. When remote pharmacists, case managers, therapists, and others can plug into a patient’s care plan virtually, the entire system becomes more responsive.

This is particularly powerful in rural or resource-constrained settings. Virtual platforms make it possible to extend expert care—regardless of physical location—ensuring every patient has access to high-quality support.

Virtual Care Touches Every Department

• Case managers support discharge planning virtually, even on weekends.
• Pharmacists reconcile medications remotely, improving safety and efficiency.
• Dietitians and therapists provide consults without being physically present, extending coverage to resource-limited sites.
• Security uses real-time monitoring for staff duress alerts.
• OR coordinators leverage computer vision to track turnover, flag workflow delays, and automate surgical timeouts.

A single platform supporting multidisciplinary collaboration eliminates silos and drives consistency across the care continuum

Evolving From Pilots to System-Wide Virtual Care

Most health systems begin with a single-use case—virtual sitters or remote admission support—but staying there limits potential. Scaling virtual care requires a mindset shift: from discrete pilots to an integrated platform that spans nursing, operating room, pharmacy, case management, therapy, security, dietary, and beyond.

This shift starts with a clear organizational “why”: reduce staff burnout, improve patient safety, close gaps in rural coverage, or streamline patient throughput. Once defined, that strategy must extend across all clinical and operational workflows—standardizing virtual processes the same way we’ve historically standardized in-person care.

Building Standardized Virtual Workflows

Whether a nurse is virtual or at the bedside, the care process should follow a consistent framework. This allows teams to deliver care more efficiently and creates a more seamless experience for patients.

For example, virtual nurses can support admission and discharge workflows or conduct patient education. When these tasks are clearly defined and standardized across facilities, virtual care becomes a powerful tool, not just a stopgap.

Perhaps even more importantly, a virtual nurse with a bird’s-eye view across all hospitals can help identify inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement. This level of visibility enables proactive care coordination and issue resolution that can reduce readmissions and improve outcomes system-wide.

The key is not just digitizing existing workflows—it’s optimizing them. When virtual clinicians operate with standardized protocols and access to real-time insights, the entire system becomes more proactive, responsive, and resilient.

Supporting Clinicians and Reducing Burnout

A key benefit of virtual care is its ability to reduce the burden on bedside teams. By shifting non-hands-on tasks like documentation, patient observation, or discharge coordination to virtual team members, bedside clinicians can focus on direct patient care.

The result? Higher job satisfaction, reduced incidental overtime, better retention—and fewer dollars lost to turnover or traveler nurse spend. Virtual care doesn’t just improve morale—it delivers measurable operational impact.

The Role of Technology Infrastructure

Scaling virtual care requires a robust infrastructure. This includes two-way audio/video, secure data exchange, integration with the EHR, and capabilities like ambient listening, computer vision, and AI-driven alerts.

But technology alone isn’t enough. Successful programs pair infrastructure with workflow redesign and change management, ensuring that the tech enhances clinical care rather than disrupting it.

Virtual Care as a Long-Term Strategy

Virtual care is no longer a “nice to have”; it’s a long-term strategy for delivering care that is safer, more efficient, and more clinician-friendly. But scale doesn’t happen by accident. It requires strong governance, multidisciplinary collaboration, and infrastructure that supports the full spectrum of care—from the ED to the ICU, the OR, and beyond.

When health systems commit to scaling virtual care with a clear strategy and the right tools, they unlock something powerful: not just a better way to deliver care but a better experience for the people providing it.