WellSpan’s virtual nursing tackle looming healthcare staffing crisis
PENNSYLVANIA, UNITED STATES — With a wave of nurse retirements on the horizon and rising patient demand, hospitals are turning to virtual nursing to sustain high-quality care.
WellSpan Health‘s strategic program, powered by AI platform Artisight, offers a blueprint for easing workloads and preparing the next generation of nurses.
Virtual nursing addresses workforce shortages
Patty Donley, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Pennsylvania-based WellSpan Health, warns that the nursing pipeline can’t keep pace.
“We’ll likely need more care at the same time that our baby boomer nursing and healthcare professionals are retiring,” she notes.
To counter that, WellSpan also introduced a virtual nursing program in 2023 that helps veteran nurses stay at home, manage bedside teams, and provide knowledge without physical discomfort.
Virtual nurses process admissions, and charting through the AI platform of Artisight takes them out of the picture, allowing bedside staff to provide direct care.
“The other thing we started at the very beginning was to message that the virtual care nurse was not meant to replace nurses, but to support them,” Donley stresses.
Early results indicate improved nurse satisfaction, with plans to expand this approach into operating rooms by utilizing ambient listening for real-time note-taking.
Collaborative tech integration prepares next-gen nurses
Cross-functional teams designed governance structures with input from nurses, ensuring that technology—such as Artisight‘s smart sensors—addressed real workflow pains.
“I think that listening and gaining their insights and input into how we did it initially helped us to build a platform and to create a virtual care model that worked for our nurses,” Donley explained, pertaining to frontline nurses’ feedback on the system.
The health system also partners with nursing schools to expose students to virtual tools early, priming them for tech-driven roles post-graduation.
Plans include AI-assisted documentation and expanding virtual oversight to high-acuity areas. Donley advises other hospitals to start small but think long-term.
