The health system’s use of telemedicine has saved more than 3,000 hours of bedside nurse time, supported by more than 16,000 virtual nursing sessions. The CNIO discusses this and other successes.
April Saathoff, DNP, RN, vice president and chief nursing information officer at the Johns Hopkins Health System and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Nursing
Johns Hopkins Health System recognized an opportunity to evolve how nursing care was delivered in response to mounting clinical and operational complexity – and without compromising quality or patient experience. Evolving workforce dynamics required ongoing attention to staffing consistency at the bedside, while patient acuity, regulatory requirements and documentation demands continued to rise.
THE CHALLENGE
In today’s healthcare environment, nurses often manage admissions, discharges, patient education, quality monitoring and hands-on care simultaneously – which can limit the flexibility to engage as deeply as desired in relationship‑based patient care.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to operational excellence, we continually evaluate opportunities to further streamline admission and discharge workflows,” said April Saathoff, DNP, RN, vice president and chief nursing information officer at the Johns Hopkins Health System and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. “Enhancing these processes supports smooth patient flow across the health system, improves care transitions, and helps ensure patients are well prepared to manage their healthcare decisions after leaving the hospital.
“At the same time, performance expectations around readmissions, patient experience and hospital‑acquired conditions remain high, requiring careful attention to education, coordination and compliance across every shift,” she continued. “We recognized that the inherent pace and demands of bedside nursing can contribute to interruptions during care delivery.”
Staff wanted to create a more intentional, less rushed model of care – one that allows experienced nurses to engage more fully with patients, address questions, reinforce education and support informed decision-making.
“As we looked ahead, we saw value in reimagining how nursing work is structured to proactively support staff wellbeing, reinforce consistent best practices and enable long‑term success across quality, experience and efficiency,” she added.
PROPOSAL
Virtual nursing was proposed as a care delivery redesign focused on strengthening – not replacing – the bedside nurse role. The model offered a way to redistribute time‑intensive and cognitively demanding tasks such as admission assessments, discharge education, care coordination, quality monitoring and mentoring to experienced nurses working remotely – allowing bedside nurses to focus more fully on physical assessment, interventions and other forms of direct patient care, Saathoff said.
“Technology‑enabled virtual nursing platforms made it possible for virtual nurses to engage patients in real time through secure audio‑visual connections while remaining fully integrated with the care team,” she explained.
“The intent was to create a continuous, visible nursing presence that could reliably support patients, families and staff during high‑impact moments of care such as admissions, discharges and education – factors strongly tied to outcomes like readmissions, patient satisfaction and safety,” she continued.
Staff saw virtual nursing as a scalable system that aligned workforce sustainability with patient‑centered care. It offered flexibility to retain highly experienced nurses, reinforce standardized workflows, improve throughput, and ensure consistent delivery of education and quality practices – all while preserving the human connection that is central to nursing, she added.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Virtual nursing was implemented as a collaborative model embedded directly into nursing workflows across multiple medical‑surgical units. Virtual nurses have taken on the roles of performing admission assessments, discharge planning and teaching, patient and family education, care plan updates, quality and regulatory monitoring, dual medication verification, and mentoring. Meanwhile, bedside nurses retain full responsibility for physical assessments, medication administration and hands‑on care.
“Virtual nurses work from dedicated on‑site hubs and interact with patients through Caregility cameras, speakers and monitors installed in patient rooms,” Saathoff explained. “Patients are introduced to virtual nurses as members of their care team, and sessions include education, safety checks, interpreter‑supported visits, and family/caregiver participation, as needed. Bedside nurses can easily request virtual support, creating real‑time relief during peak workload periods.
“Virtual nursing is tightly integrated into the electronic health record,” she continued. “Virtual nurses document directly in the EHR, use dashboards to prioritize work, communicate with bedside nurses via secure messaging applications, and leverage eligibility screening tools embedded into admission and discharge workflows.”
This integration ensures shared situational awareness, minimizes duplication, and reinforces virtual nursing as a seamless extension of bedside care rather than an add‑on, she added.
RESULTS
Throughput and efficiency: Virtual nursing drove measurable improvements in patient flow. Over this period, Johns Hopkins Health System saw measurable improvements in both admission readiness and discharge workflows, resulting in more timely patient movement and smoother care transitions across the health system, Saathoff reported.
“By handling admissions and discharges remotely, virtual nurses were able to complete these processes more quickly – yet still thoroughly – without the interruptions that routinely challenge bedside nurses, making these gains possible and helping to reduce average length of stay,” she said.
Quality and safety outcomes: The model contributed to meaningful improvements in patient safety and regulatory compliance, particularly in the areas of fall prevention and pressure injury reduction. Staff also observed improvements in regulatory documentation compliance, as virtual nurses consistently monitored, documented and reinforced quality practices – helping reduce variation and support bedside staff during busy shifts, she noted.
“In addition, virtual nurses routinely review care delivery to ensure quality bundle compliance and appropriate interventions are in place, while assuming administrative and documentation tasks that free bedside nurses to spend more time delivering direct, high‑quality and safety‑focused care with patients,” she added.
Patient and nurse experience: From the outset, nursing staff worked closely with their colleague Patient and Family Advisors, Patient Education and Patient Experience teams to co‑design a virtual nursing program that directly addressed patients’ needs, preferences and concerns.
“Many nursing‑related HCAHPS domains improved following implementation, specifically in categories like likelihood to recommend, nurse communication and discharge information,” Saathoff explained. “From a workforce perspective, virtual nurses rate their shift workload and satisfaction highly.”
Financial and workforce impact: Virtual nursing promoted nursing wellness by offloading cognitively intense and administrative tasks from the bedside nurse. The initiative allowed for greater workforce stability, with decreased dependence on premium labor and improved nursing vacancy rates, she reported.
“Since go‑live, virtual nurses have saved more than 3,000 hours of bedside nurse time, supported by more than 16,000 virtual nursing sessions,” she concluded. “These results demonstrate that virtual nursing is not only a technology investment, but a workforce and care delivery strategy that delivers sustainable value.”
From Burnout to Breakthrough: Rome Health’s Virtual Nursing Journey
Digital Health Frontiers – Podcast Ep. 11
“Patients aren’t getting less attention with virtual care—they’re getting more focused attention.” – Mike Brandofino, President and COO, Caregility
Healthcare isn’t short on patients. It is short on time, staff, and sustainable workflows. In this episode of Digital Health Frontiers, Mike Brandofino speaks with Rome Health‘s Chief Nursing Officer, Ashley Edwards, about how they are rethinking care delivery through a virtual nursing model designed to support bedside teams.
By shifting administrative and non-clinical tasks such as discharges, admissions, and medication reconciliation to virtual workflows, Rome Health is giving clinicians more time with patients and reducing workload pressure. The program is nurse-led and built to extend existing staff, not replace them.
Ashley shares how the team focused on optimizing workflows before introducing technology, enabling a faster launch and smoother expansion into new use cases. By staffing virtual roles with their own clinicians, Rome Health strengthened trust, improved collaboration, and retained experienced nurses in new ways.
The impact is already clear. The organization is seeing meaningful improvements in patient satisfaction along with gains in efficiency and care team experience. By tracking key metrics such as burnout, adoption, and length of stay, Rome Health is building a strong case for the long-term value of virtual nursing.
This episode offers a practical look at how to implement and scale virtual care in a community health system, with lessons on workflow design, change management, and measuring outcomes.
Listen Here:
Read the Transcript
Mike Brandofino Sr Well, hello, everybody. I’m here with Ashley Edwards, CNO of Rome Health. And we’re here to just talk about her experience and what they’re doing to drive virtual care through their health system. So, Ashley, thank you very much for joining. Maybe you could start off with just a little introduction about you and Rome.
Ashley Edwards Sure. I’m the Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Clinical Services. I’ve been with Rome for about 14 years. This is actually the only place I’ve ever worked. So I started as a graduate nurse here. I also just completed my Doctor of Nursing Practice and Executive Leadership. And that’s kind of where Virtual nursing for me kicked off and how we wanted to implement that.
Mike Brandofino Sr Great. So, one of the things that I think many of the listeners are familiar with is some of the larger health systems talking about the challenges they face and what programs they’re implementing. And it’s so encouraging to see a health system like Rome embracing technology. Could you just talk about, you know, your path towards that and what are the things that made you convinced that you needed to go down that path.
Ashley Edwards Yeah, so when I was doing my main project for my doctorate, I was really looking at the post-COVID world as everybody faces the nursing turnover. When I started digging deep into what led into nursing turnover, it was a lot about burnout, which is unsurprising between all healthcare organizations. But when I started really unpacking, it was really the workload. So, we talk a lot about nursing ratios. I don’t love to talk about that because there’s so much more than just that. So, when we start looking at workload, I started thinking, you know, how can we start helping the bedside nurses with their workload, especially in these higher acuity patients that we’re seeing post-COVID?
Mike Brandofino Sr Sure.
Ashley Edwards So what I decided to go down the route of was, can we use a virtually integrated care delivery model where the virtual nurse isn’t taking away the bedside tasks, but is taking away the administrative tasks, allowing the nurses to get back to the bedside, back to time with the patients, time with the families, you know, doing what they became a bedside nurse to do? So that’s kind of how we launched virtual nursing.
Very lucky that about the same time I was finishing up my project, we received a grant through the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. Mother Cabrini also recognized that we needed to kind of shift how we were doing retention in New York State. So they put together a significant amount of funds for organizations and we were very lucky to be chosen for that. A caveat that they also included along with the magnet journey was funds for virtual nursing. So it was, you know, it was almost serendipitous that I was finishing my project and then we were able to receive the grant for the money for that.
Mike Brandofino Sr Great. And so has your decision been to try to blend your existing staff with virtual and floor-based, or were you looking to outsource nurses?
Ashley Edwards Yeah, good question. Because we did look at both because there’s, you know, both models definitely exist and they definitely have benefits, pros and cons to both. But as a community hospital, when we looked at it, one of our main principles was that we were going to use our own staff for multiple reasons. We wanted to make sure that there is still communication between the nursing staff and the bedside. There’s a lot of changes, and we wanted to make sure that that was smooth. We wanted to make sure that there was trust between the bedside nurses and virtual nurses. ICU nurse by background, we’ve become very protective of our patients.
Mike Brandofino Sr Sure.
Ashley Edwards And you know, you’re a virtual nurse, getting involved in my care. So for it to be – we call it Sarah squared – Sarah and Sarah and Taylor, who are people that they already know, they’ve already got that trust with their care partners, and it allowed this change to be much more smooth.
Mike Brandofino Sr So interesting, we’ve had some customers say that they actually have been able to extend the careers of some nurses by doing that and thereby keeping incredible knowledge within the health system. And again, that familiarity with those more senior nurses, is that something that you’re thinking of doing or already have seen?
Ashley Edwards Yeah, so we actually have one nurse who joined us because she’s a really, really strong ICU nurse, has a ton of clinical knowledge, but the bedside just wasn’t for her life right now with what’s going on. And so we were able to transition her into the virtual nurse role. So, great clinician, lots of experience, and we were able to save her as one of our Rome Health family members. So definitely we’ve seen that benefit.
Mike Brandofino Sr That’s great. We’re actually working with a couple of universities, and one in particular in New Jersey, where they’re developing a certification, accredited certification program for virtual nursing, specifically looking to target nurses that either physically can’t be on the floor anymore, or recently retired, but really still have that passion, as all nurses do for care, to be able to help augment the available resource, because we can never have enough nurses, right?
Ashley Edwards Yeah, that’s awesome. Because when you look at, we’ll just take New York State, for example, if you look at the number of licensed nurses, that’s not how many are practicing. We nurses, we like to hold on to our licensure even after most of them retire. So you can’t really get a true gauge, but there is still, you know, a big pocket of nurses that if we could optimize this, we could take advantage of. So I think that’s great.
Mike Brandofino Sr Great. So what workflows are you currently doing and where’s your vision as far as where you’d like to expand?
Ashley Edwards Yeah. So Sarah and I talk about virtual nursing and our vision a lot, because really you could just keep expanding and expanding and expanding. So we’re trying to figure out where our best, we’ll say bang for our buck is as we do this. So we started with discharges. So we’re doing discharges right now, Monday through Saturday is how our pilot works, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So if there’s a discharge during that time, the virtual nurse is doing it. We’re really excited that this week we’ve trained our pharmacy techs on the virtual nursing platform. So they’re starting to do medication reconciliations. And then next week, we are launching admissions. So they’re going to be taking on any of the non-clinical aspects of the admission process. So we started small. We’re already starting to very quickly expand.
Mike Brandofino Sr Nice. There are literally dozens of workflows that can happen. Interesting, we were at one customer recently and this is the first – I wish I could have recorded it – the first time I heard them say there are too many workflows because there’s some contention for the camera and access to communication with the patient from behavioral health to dietary, you know, there’s so many reasons to try and get into that room, which is great because I think the more we can leverage that, you know, it’s all about, you kind of said this, but you know, we kind of use the phrase, allowing nurses to practice at the top of their license more hours of the day, right? So it’s exciting to see that. You know, as you went through this process, what challenges can you maybe give feedback to people who will be listening to this, what they should look out for as you roll out a program?
Ashley Edwards Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah, I think that the first takeaway – and I have a really, really good rapport with our chief informaticist so we talk a lot about this – but technology is a tool. So it’s only as good as the systems that you already have in place. So what we found that was really successful is we hired our lead, Sarah, early before we even determined that we were going to go with Caregility. And we did a lot of planning. We actually used the Cotter’s 8-step change model so that we could make sure that we were really successful. We set up a sense of urgency, the strategic vision. We worked through all of our barriers. Before we decided to go with discharge planning, we revamped the entire discharge workflow so that we could make sure our workflow was seamless before we added the technology to it. A lot of times, if you’re just throwing technology onto a problem, you’re not going to see the resolution that you’re looking for. You really have to optimize your workflows first and have a plan. So that would be my biggest lesson.
Mike Brandofino Sr I think that’s really important. I’ve had many conversations with leaders in health systems where we try and encourage them to resolve the process problems first before you apply technology to it, because technology is not going to fix it if it’s already a broken process. So you mentioned that you guys got some funding. What’s that like? And what are the key things that enabled you to win and get that funding?
Ashley Edwards So we were one of, I believe, 12 organizations throughout New York State that were awarded the Mother Cabrini Health Grant. It’s over five years. So we actually received the max, which is $1 million a year, for five years, so 5 million total. The end goal is to achieve ANCC magnet designation. But then like I said, a sliver of that also was for virtual nursing. So when we received that, it was specifically allotted towards both the technology and the FTEs for nursing. So we put in for a lead and two virtual nurses. That’s where we’re starting. What’s going to be really important, especially as a community hospital, is to make sure that we’re tracking our metrics to know that when that money’s gone, that we’re viable, because we don’t want to look back five years from now and not remember where we came from. So that’s a lot of Sarah’s role, is to help us track all that. No pressure on Sarah.
Mike Brandofino Sr Yeah, right. So we’ve been talking a lot about nurses, but obviously this technology is available to doctors, physicians as well. Are there programs that you’re implementing leveraging the technology for them as well?
Ashley Edwards We haven’t yet. We’ve talked a lot about it. We have some specialty consults that are available throughout the entire day. They come at certain points. And could we decrease our length of stay or improve our efficiency if we could get that access to the physician? So it’s definitely on our radar.
Mike Brandofino Sr Okay. And then are you needing to support any rural areas out, you know, from your facility at all or?
Ashley Edwards Not yet, nope.
Mike Brandofino Sr Okay. And that’s another obviously big topic these days. And of course, there’s funding available for rural health as well that the health systems can go after.
Ashley Edwards No, we haven’t gone down that route yet. We’re really just focused on the discharge and admissions and really seeing what we can do on the floor that it’s on right now.
Mike Brandofino Sr Great, great. Well, is there anything else you’d like to share or what’s, you know, you mentioned a couple of new workflows that you’re going with. What’s your kind of, you know, target, what you want to achieve with some of this technology as a whole?
Ashley Edwards Yeah. So we are doing nursing research based on this, which is really cool. So what we’ve started studying is we did a pre and then we’re doing a three-month, six-month and nine-month lookout. And we’re looking at burnout and we’re looking at technology acceptance. So it’ll be interesting to see, as we leverage virtual nursing, how those scores change. We’re also tracking our patient satisfaction and then length of stay. So those are kind of our key metrics that we’re watching. We’ve already seen some really great improvements. I was just sharing with Sarah early this week for our patient satisfaction. It’s really, really quite astonishing. So to be able to continue tracking that.
Mike Brandofino Sr Great. That is a consistent thing that we’re hearing. And it’s funny because if anyone attended health events five years ago, there was this conversation about depersonalizing care when you introduce remote care. And people were worried that it would negatively impact the experience of the patient, but we’ve actually had the exact opposite. And I think it stems from the feeling that they’re getting more focused attention.
Ashley Edwards Yeah. For sure.
Mike Brandofino Sr Maybe the nurse that comes into the room gets pulled out for an alarm and only has 5 minutes or doesn’t get to actually have a conversation with the patient. And we’re seeing that definite improvement in patient satisfaction scores, which is great.
Ashley Edwards Yeah. Exactly. I think that you hit it on the head. So, our discharge information domain from Press Ganey, on our fourth quarter for discharge domain, was in the 51st percentile nationally. In March, we’re at 98th percentile.
Mike Brandofino Sr Nice. That’s fantastic.
Ashley Edwards So, huge, huge achievement, yeah.
Mike Brandofino Sr It’s great. And, you know, capturing those metrics, I think, really justifies the program. I think a lot of times we intrinsically know there’s value, right? But capturing the metrics is so important because it proves it. And we have seen impacts on length of stay. Obviously, on the patient safety side, we’ve seen huge impacts from fall prevention. And now, you know, as we move into more smart rooms with more sensors, things like radar and incontinence sensors, I think that those scores are just going to get better and better.
Ashley Edwards Yeah, I agree.
Mike Brandofino Sr Well, Ashley, thank you very much for joining us today and sharing your story. We really appreciate you selecting Caregility and we look forward to partnering with you and driving your vision and look forward to follow up and maybe seeing you in person soon.
Ashley Edwards Of course. Thank you.
As I said, I think it’s such a great story because even our focus historically has been in the larger health systems, but it’s so great to hear your story and see you guys be successful. It’s really encouraging.
Ashley Edwards And I think just kudos to you guys. I mean, we spent a lot of time looking through finding a partner and Caregility has just been exceptional. So we’re really, really thankful for that. The team has been great.
Learn about Caregility’s iCare Coordinator, the centralized virtual care solution bringing efficiency, clarity, and connection to care teams.
Caregility Showcases Multi-Sensor Smart Hospital Room with Edge AI and Unified Connected Care Workflows at HIMSS 2026
The exhibit showcases how health systems can operationalize safer, more efficient care with room-aware AI that works instantly, processes at the edge, and scales across the enterprise.
WALL, N.J. – March 9, 2026 – Caregility Corporation, a global leader in AI-assisted connected care, will unveil its most advanced Hospital Room of the Future exhibit yet at the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas, March 9–12. The exhibit will feature Caregility’s expanding multi-sensor suite, ambient AI capabilities, edge-processing architecture, and Epic-integrated virtual workflows designed to help care teams identify risk earlier, respond faster, reduce burden on bedside staff, and improve coordination across the hospital.
Purpose-built for clinical environments, the Caregility Connected Care™ Platform unifies virtual nursing, remote monitoring, patient observation, clinical collaboration, bedside requests, and sensor-driven alerts within a single enterprise platform. Rather than adding more point solutions to already fragmented care environments, Caregility helps health systems orchestrate people, data, devices, and workflows in real time at the bedside and across remote teams.
Unlike many AI solutions that require extensive room mapping or lengthy model training, Caregility’s edge AI architecture is designed to work immediately once deployed. Running locally on Caregility’s adaptive bedside endpoints, the system can interpret patient positioning, movement, room activity, and emerging risk conditions without sending video offsite for analysis.
Inside Booth 3511, visitors will see how Caregility helps health systems:
Surface Actionable Intelligence at the Point of Care
Improve patient safety interventions using computer vision and radar sensors to continuously detect patient position and movement
Identify early signs of deterioration using contactless radar-based vital sign monitoring
Detect incontinence events and potential safety concerns such as smoking or vaping using contactless air sensing
Recognize signs of duress and elevated room noise levels through continuous ambient audio monitoring
Deliver faster, more meaningful alerts to the right care team members through unified escalation workflows
Put AI to Work Without Adding Workflow Friction
Simplify common care team tasks, including requesting a virtual nurse, launching interpreter services, and initiating ambient documentation using voice-assisted bedside workflows. These capabilities are designed to fit naturally into clinical routines, reducing manual steps while improving responsiveness and documentation support.
Scale Virtual Nursing and Monitoring Through a Single Operational Hub
Manage virtual engagement, task orchestration, sensor alerts, patient monitoring, and escalation workflows through a centralized command environment. This single-pane-of-glass approach helps health systems build programs at scale, improve visibility across units, and reduce workflow fragmentation.
Health systems deploying Caregility virtual care programs have reported measurable operational improvements, including reducing nursing turnover by 23%, recovering more than 1,118 hours of bedside staff time within six months of go-live, and reducing patient falls with injury by over 20%.
“The smart hospital room is no longer about adding more technology to the bedside,” said Mike Brandofino, president and COO of Caregility. “It is about making the room more aware, more connected, and more responsive without creating more work for clinicians. With edge AI, unified workflows, and local processing that works instantly, Caregility is helping providers turn the patient room into an operational asset for safer, more efficient care.”
“Our mission is to help health systems use technology to strengthen human connection in care delivery,” said Ron Gaboury, CEO of Caregility. “When AI can identify risk early, virtual teams can step in faster, and bedside staff can focus more of their time on patients instead of task overload — that is where meaningful transformation happens.”
HIMSS attendees are encouraged to visit Booth 3511 to experience how Caregility is helping health systems create more intelligent, resilient, and sustainable care environments through edge AI, smart sensors, and enterprise virtual care orchestration. To schedule a meeting at HIMSS, visit insights.caregility.com/visit-caregility-at-himss26 or learn more at caregility.com.
About Caregility
Caregility is a global leader in enterprise connected care solutions, enabling organizations to deliver care anytime, anywhere. The Caregility Connected Care™ Platform spans inpatient, outpatient, and home settings, helping health systems accelerate digital transformation through secure, scalable, and seamlessly integrated virtual care solutions. Doctors, nurses, and patients around the world rely on Caregility’s smart room devices, virtual nursing, observation, consultation, and AI-enhanced applications to improve clinical workflows, patient safety, workforce efficiency, and care access. Trusted by leading health systems internationally, with millions of virtual care sessions annually, Caregility is connecting care everywhere.
5 Reasons to Visit Caregility (Booth 3511) at HIMSS26
If you’re heading to HIMSS26 in Las Vegas, your schedule is probably filling up quickly with sessions, meetings, and exhibit hall excursions.
Why should Booth 3511 make your shortlist? Because we’re not just showing healthcare technology, we’re demonstrating how connected care works in real hospital environments.
Here are 5 reasons to stop by:
1. Experience the Connected Hospital Room of the Future
Step inside an operational patient-aware room, not a concept mockup. See how bedside sensors, remote workflows, and AI come together to support clinicians and patients.
2. See Smart Sensors in Action
Smart sensors for virtual engagement, continuous observation, computer vision, ambient listening, contactless vitals, and more give you situational awareness at every bedside.
3. Preview What’s New
Get hands-on with our latest innovations, including iCare Coordinator, LOOP, and CUBE, designed to deliver coordinated workflows, impact analytics, and scalable connected care.
4. Explore Seamless Integrations with Core Clinical Systems
See how Caregility supports seamless integration with Epic, nurse call systems, bedside TVs, connected devices, interpreters, clinical services providers, and more.
5. Learn How Connected Care Supports Nursing Teams
Learn how hospitals are using Virtual Nursing and other remote workflows to reduce clinician burnout, improve patient care, and modernize clinical workflows.
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Talk to experts with lived bedside experience. Stop by Caregility booth 3511 to have real conversations about challenges, outcomes, and strategies for future-proof innovation, gleaned from our team’s work with leading health systems around the globe.
If you’re ready to see how connected care works in practice, we’d love to meet you in Vegas!
Through its partnership with Caregility, Rome Health is bringing collaborative, technology-enabled nursing support to patients and care teams.
Sarah Dutch, RN, Virtual Nursing Clinical Coordinator at Rome Health, works from the hospital’s virtual nursing hub, supporting patients and bedside nurses on the 2 East Medical-Surgical Unit.
February 20, 2026 – Rome Health has introduced a virtual nursing program on its 2 East Medical–Surgical Unit, bringing experienced nurses together with new technology to strengthen patient care and support bedside nurses.
Funded through a Nursing Initiative Grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, the program adds dedicated virtual nurses working with bedside nurses to enhance patient education, assist with discharge planning, and help ensure patients are fully prepared to continue their care at home.
Using technology from Caregility, cameras installed in every patient room on the 2 East unit allow virtual nurses to securely connect with patients through the in-room televisions. The new program reflects a growing trend in healthcare to use technology to reduce administrative burdens on nurses while maintaining a strong personal connection with patients.
“Our goal is to give bedside nurses more time to focus on direct patient care,” said Virtual Nursing Clinical Coordinator Sarah Dutch, RN. “Virtual nurses help guide patients through discharge instructions, answer questions, and make sure they understand the next steps in their care.”
Unlike remote call centers or outsourced services, Rome Health’s virtual nurses are hospital employees with extensive clinical experience who work onsite at the hospital from a centralized workspace. Their role is fully integrated into the care team, collaborating closely with nurses on the unit throughout the day. The bedside nurse continues to serve as the primary nurse and provides hands-on care.
“The program represents an important investment in both patient experience and the nursing workforce,” said Chief Nursing Officer Ashley Edwards DNP RN NE-BC. “Discharge is one of the most critical moments in a patient’s hospital stay. By dedicating experienced nurses to focus on education and transition planning, the virtual nursing program helps patients leave the hospital with a clearer understanding of medications, follow-up care, and warning signs to watch for at home.”
“We’re grateful to the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation for investing in innovative ways to support nurses and patients,” said Edwards said. “Their funding for both the technology and the nursing resources made it possible for us to launch virtual nursing and give our bedside nurses more time where it matters most — with their patients.”
Caregility Launches Japan’s First Microsoft Azure-Based Enterprise Connected Care Solution
The expansion enables clinical teams in Japan to implement Tele-ICU, Remote Monitoring, Virtual Nursing, and other digitally enabled care models, improving staff collaboration, patient safety, and care access.
WALL, N.J. — February 19, 2026 — Caregility Corporation, a global leader in AI-assisted connected care, today announced the launch of the first enterprise-grade virtual care solution built on Microsoft Azure in Japan. The cloud-hosted Caregility Connected Care™ Platform establishes a scalable foundation for advanced remote workflows across acute care facilities in Japan. Purpose-built to support high-acuity clinical environments, the platform brings real-time remote patient engagement and digital care team collaboration into bedside care while meeting Japan’s strict data sovereignty and regulatory requirements.
The solution enables a broad range of acute clinical workflows, including virtual ICU collaboration, clinician-to-clinician consultation, remote monitoring and observation, and escalation support. Developed for inpatient environments, the platform leverages native AI solutions, including the industry’s only completely edge-based Computer Vision, Bed Sore alerts, and Incontinence sensors, helping clinicians make faster, more informed decisions and maintain care continuity across multiple locations.
Built for reliability and scale, the platform is trusted by over 1,000 hospitals globally and supports over 20 million virtual care sessions annually. Flexible architecture allows health systems to deploy in public or private cloud environments, localize regional requirements, and scale across facilities without compromising performance or uptime.
“A secure, scalable cloud foundation is essential for the future of connected care,” said Mike Brandofino, President and COO of Caregility. “Limited clinical resources are a global problem, and by launching our platform on Azure in Japan, we’re enabling health systems in the region to share invaluable specialist expertise in real time in a way that maximizes patient access without compromising performance.”
The Japan deployment marks the latest step in Caregility’s ongoing global expansion efforts, which include Saudi Arabia, Jordon, and Canada, delivering on the organization’s mission to deliver enterprise-grade connected care infrastructure that adapts to the clinical, regulatory, and operational needs of health systems worldwide.
About Caregility
Caregility (caregility.com) is the global leader in enterprise connected care solutions, enabling organizations to deliver care anytime, anywhere. The Caregility Connected Care™ Platform spans inpatient, outpatient, and home settings, helping health systems accelerate digital transformation by improving clinical workflows, patient experience, and workforce efficiency through secure, scalable, and seamlessly integrated digital health solutions. Doctors, nurses, and patients around the world rely on our telehealth edge devices and virtual nursing, observation, and consultation applications to enhance clinical insights, patient safety, and efficiency. Trusted by 1,100+ hospitals in health systems around the globe, with over 19,000 contracted bedside sensors hosting over six million virtual care sessions annually, Caregility is connecting care everywhere.
US Contact: Jess Clifton Director of Marketing Caregility jclifton@caregility.com 678-360-9043
Closing the LOOP™: Turning Your Virtual Care Data into Informed Decisions
On-Demand Webinar
Closing the LOOP™: Turning Virtual Care Data into Informed Decisions
See how Caregility’s LOOP analytics help health systems measure, benchmark, and optimize virtual care.
Measuring Virtual Care Performance with Confidence
Virtual care programs generate enormous amounts of data, but many health systems struggle to turn that data into clear, actionable insight. Leaders are often left asking: What’s working? Where are we falling short? And how do we confidently demonstrate value to leadership?
In this on-demand webinar, Caregility leaders Susan Kristiniak, DHA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, AHN-BC, Chief Nursing Officer, and Ben Cassidy, MBA, MSN, RN, CCRN, Director of Emerging Technology Adoption, introduce LOOP (Lens on Organizational Performance), a new analytics solution designed to bring clarity to virtual care performance across clinical, operational, and financial teams.
Built with nursing workflows in mind, LOOP consolidates data across Caregility’s platform to help organizations measure impact, identify opportunities to optimize, and support informed decisions around program growth and investment.
What You’ll Learn
Program utilization trends and opportunities to increase efficiency
Operational and workflow performance, including session patterns and escalation drivers
Clinical and cost-savings indicators that support ROI discussions with leadership
Benchmarking and quality monitoring to strengthen continuous improvement efforts
Watch the Recording
Fill out the form above to access the on-demand webinar and learn how LOOP equips your team with the data needed to make faster, more confident connected care decisions.
Innovation Under Pressure: How Salem Health Built a Sustainable Nursing Future with Virtual Nursing
Download the Case Study
Innovation Under Pressure: How Salem Health Built a Sustainable Nursing Future with Virtual Nursing
See how Salem Health faced one of the most aggressive nurse staffing mandates in the country and turned it into a catalyst for transformation.
Care Model Transformation Real-World ROI How to Get Started
↓ WHAT’S INSIDE …
The Result
Faster discharges. Fewer missed breaks. Better patient communication. And a scalable model ready for today’s workforce pressures and tomorrow’s regulations. Virtual nurses now support admissions, discharges, education, and break coverage with Epic, Vocera, and nurse call system integration.
How Salem Health Built a Smarter Nursing Model
When Oregon enacted new nurse-to-patient ratios, Salem Health needed a fast, sustainable solution. Instead of relying on costly hiring, the health system launched Virtual Nursing, creating a staffing multiplier that protects nurses, patients, and margins.
The Impact
93% of discharges supported virtually
52% of admissions supported virtually
11% reduction in bedside nursing burden
30–60 minutes saved per discharge
$250,000 saved in the first few months
Fill out the form above to download the Virtual Nursing case study and see how Salem Health turned regulation into a roadmap for sustainable care.
Preparing Nurses for Virtual-First Care: Insights from the CNO Collective
As Virtual Nursing becomes a core component of inpatient care delivery, health systems are facing a new and urgent challenge: ensuring nurses are prepared—not just trained—to practice confidently in a hybrid, technology-enabled environment.
That challenge was the focus of a recent Caregility gathering of the CNO Collective, where nursing executives, residency leaders, informatics experts, and educators came together to share experiences and perspectives on nurse readiness for connected care models.
The Workforce Pressure Behind Virtual Nursing Adoption
Healthcare leaders are navigating unprecedented workforce constraints. Demand for nurses continues to rise, yet nursing programs are struggling to expand enrollment due to faculty shortages, limited clinical placement capacity, and budget constraints. At the same time, the average age of practicing nurses remains high, with many experienced clinicians approaching retirement.
These pressures are driving health systems to adopt virtual nursing models that can extend clinical expertise, rebalance workloads, and reduce burnout at the bedside. But as participants emphasized, virtual care is not simply “plug-and-play.”
“We have aspects of virtual care today, but what matters most is how we use these models to truly augment frontline staff who are overwhelmed and overworked,” shared one CNO participant.
For clinical, technology, and financial leaders alike, the takeaway was clear: Virtual Nursing must be paired with intentional workforce strategy to deliver sustainable value.
Competency Is Not Enough – Confidence Is the Gap
One of the most consistent themes was the confidence gap faced by new-to-practice nurses, particularly after they come off orientation.
“Outside of competency, this really speaks to confidence,” said Jennifer Zipp, DNP, MS, RN, Executive Director of the Maryland Nurse Residency Collaborative. “When nurses lose that constant tether to a preceptor, stress and fear rise dramatically.”
Virtual Nursing was repeatedly cited as a way to bridge this gap, providing real-time access to experienced clinicians who can validate decisions, answer questions, and reinforce best practices without pulling resources away from the unit. For nurse leaders, this support model helps stabilize early-career nurses. For financial leaders, it represents a pathway to improved retention and reduced turnover costs, a growing concern across health systems.
Virtual Nurses as Coaches, Mentors & Role Models
Beyond task support, participants highlighted the powerful role virtual nurses can play as coaches and role models, particularly in the area of communication.
“You’re not just supporting the nurse at the bedside, you’re role modeling how to communicate with patients,” noted Quinn Collins, Executive Director of Nursing from Johns Hopkins. “They’re learning by watching how you explain, engage, and guide.”
This insight reframed Virtual Nursing as more than a staffing solution. Leaders discussed how virtual nurses can function as:
Extensions of nurse residency programs
On-demand mentors during high-risk moments
Reinforcements of clinical judgment and communication standards
For CIOs and digital health leaders, this underscores the importance of deploying connected care platforms that support real-time collaboration, not just passive monitoring.
Rethinking Nurse Education for a Connected Care Environment
Another key discussion centered on the growing disconnect between traditional nursing education and modern care delivery. Many academic programs remain heavily focused on National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) preparation, which is the standardized exam required for nurses to become licensed in the U.S. This leaves limited room to address emerging competencies such as:
Introducing virtual care to patients and families
Communicating effectively with remote clinicians
Managing etiquette and presence in three-way care interactions
Supporting language access and sensory needs through digital tools
Simulation environments were identified as a critical opportunity to normalize these workflows before nurses enter practice.
As Caregility CNO Susan Kirstiniak, DHA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, AHN-BC, noted, “Virtual care is no longer an exception in acute care; it’s increasingly the norm. Preparing nurses accordingly reduces onboarding friction and accelerates time-to-value for health systems investing in virtual platforms.”
Sustaining the Workforce Through Virtual Roles
The conversation also highlighted how Virtual Nursing can help retain experienced nurses who may be physically unable or unwilling to continue bedside roles. Several organizations shared examples of senior nurses transitioning into virtual positions, preserving institutional knowledge while continuing to mentor frontline staff. In one case, this approach helped avoid the loss of multiple full-time equivalents that would otherwise have retired.
“We had a nurse who had been ill, and they weren’t going to be able to utilize her in the health system because she required continuous portable oxygen. The human resources department remembered that we were doing this program and was able to point her in our direction. That was one of our big wins, and we love telling that story because it’s human and it makes you feel good about what you’re doing.”
For financial leaders, this represents a compelling workforce optimization strategy—one that protects prior investments in clinical expertise while supporting safer staffing models.
What Comes Next for Health Systems
Participants closed the session by identifying practical next steps, including:
Embedding virtual care competencies into orientation and residency programs
Treating virtual workflows as annual competencies, not one-time training
Leveraging Virtual Nursing to support nights, weekends, and high-acuity units
Gathering feedback from new nurses on confidence and preparedness
Across roles and disciplines, leaders agreed on one thing: Virtual Nursing is no longer just a technology decision; it’s a workforce imperative.
By proactively preparing nurses for connected care models, health systems can improve clinical confidence, strengthen retention, and maximize the operational and financial returns of virtual care and AI investments.
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