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Category: Virtual Nursing

Lessons Learned in 2024: Insights & Strategies from Virtual Nursing Go-Lives

On-Demand Webinar

Lessons Learned in 2024: Insights & Strategies from Virtual Nursing Go-Lives

Virtual Nursing Go-Lives: Lessons Learned in 2024In this on-demand webinar, we take a candid, behind-the-scenes look at virtual nursing in 2024, as our team shares real-life experiences from over a dozen health system rollouts. In this engaging, roundtable-style conversation, our clinical experts discuss innovative implementations, unexpected challenges, and key successes that shaped 2024’s virtual nursing go-lives.

Key Takeaways:

  • Identify innovative applications of virtual nursing that enhanced patient care and streamlined workflows in 2024.
  • Understand critical success factors and common pitfalls in virtual nursing implementations, with practical troubleshooting examples.
  • Recognize key benefits health systems realized with virtual nursing, from improved patient engagement to increased clinical efficiency.
  • Get expert advice on planning and executing a virtual nursing program, including effective preparation and post-implementation strategies.

Addressing Concerns of Losing Patient Connection with Virtual Care

As virtual care becomes a mainstay in healthcare delivery, a lingering concern remains: will this technology-driven approach reduce the personal connection between patients and providers? Market studies note that patients and providers feel virtual care offers significant convenience and benefits, but fear it risks feeling transactional when used in sensitive settings like inpatient care.

Patient Satisfaction with Virtual Care

However, emerging data and real-world applications indicate that virtual care enhances—not diminishes—the patient experience, improving satisfaction, engagement, and continuity of care.

Evidence of Patient Satisfaction with Virtual Care

While concerns about depersonalization in healthcare delivery deserve careful consideration, a growing body of research challenges these assumptions. Multiple studies demonstrate that virtual care strengthens patient engagement and satisfaction:

After implementing a Virtual Nursing program, Florida-based Lee Health saw a 20% jump in patient satisfaction as reflected in HCAHPS scores as a result of enhancing the quality and immediacy of patient engagement. Patients report appreciating the availability of virtual nurses, who typically offer more focused interactions as they are less apt than bedside staff to be interrupted or juggling multiple tasks. “The personal nature of two-way video breaks through the glass,” said Lee Health’s System Director of Virtual Health and Telemedicine, Jon Witenko. “That human connection makes all the difference.”

A recent Becker’s Hospital Review article captures healthcare leaders’ sentiments that virtual care can enhance the overall patient experience by addressing bottlenecks in traditional workflows, “allowing nurses to have more time to engage meaningfully with patients.”

Collectively, the evidence highlights how virtual care drives better patient experience by fostering a sense of connectivity and attentiveness when implemented as part of a collaborative care model.

Virtual Acute Care’s Ripple Effect

Beyond direct patient interactions, virtual care offers additional benefits that indirectly improve patient satisfaction. One often-overlooked advantage is the boost in staff satisfaction. According to the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), nurses in virtual care roles report feeling more fulfilled and supported, a factor that significantly enhances their interactions with patients. Happier, less overburdened nurses contribute to a more positive environment, creating a ripple effect of satisfaction that extends to patients.

Virtual care also facilitates greater patient-family engagement during inpatient stays. Relatives who may not be able to be physically present can join virtual consultations and discussions about care plans, promoting connection and involvement. This enhanced accessibility helps ease the emotional stress on patients and families, leading to greater overall satisfaction and outcomes.

Finally, virtual care solutions provide continuity of care that is difficult to achieve with in-person visits alone. For instance, remote engagement tools allow providers to track patients’ progress post-discharge, offering patients and families a reliable safety net. This level of oversight reassures patients, reducing anxiety about recovery and fostering a feeling of being genuinely cared for.

Embracing a Connected Future in Healthcare

As studies and real-world applications demonstrate, virtual care has tremendous potential to enhance, not hinder, the personal connection in healthcare. Improved patient satisfaction is one factor among a growing list of benefits leading health systems to implement virtual engagement at the hospital bedside. By integrating telehealth thoughtfully into clinical workflows, health systems can improve patient and family engagement and deliver a care experience that feels deeply connected and responsive.


Looking to enhance your patient communication and engagement strategy with virtual care? Schedule a call with one of our telehealth specialists today.

Lee Health Expands Virtual Nursing Program with Caregility

The Florida-based health system will significantly expand inpatient telehealth to connect hospital patients and staff with remote nurse resources.

Wall, NJ and Fort Myers, FL (Oct 16, 2024) – Lee Health, one of Florida’s largest health systems, is significantly expanding its Virtual Nursing Program with Caregility, a leading enterprise telehealth company.

Through the initiative, Lee Health continues its commitment to modernizing care delivery, enhancing clinical efficiency, and improving patient and staff satisfaction. The latest expansion includes the deployment of Caregility APS200 Duo dual-camera telehealth devices, building on the existing fleet of telehealth wall systems and carts to more than double the health system’s inpatient virtual care footprint. With this expansion, Lee Health’s virtual acute care infrastructure will cover more than half of the health system’s hospital beds, equipping nearly 1,000 patient rooms with bedside telehealth technology.

Lee Health Virtual Nursing with the Caregility APS200 Duo telehealth edge device.

“The growth of our telehealth options accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic out of necessity to ensure patients received important care safely and we were able to ensure continuous support for our medical teams,” said Rick Schooler, Chief Information Officer of Lee Health. “Through our expansion since then, we’ve evolved our virtual care capabilities to include an award-winning inpatient virtual observation program and now virtual nursing to improve patient outcomes utilizing available, improved technology to help our clinical staff.”

“This expansion is an important part of Lee Health’s broader strategy to modernize healthcare delivery,” said Jennifer Higgins, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, Chief Nursing Officer of Lee Health. “Our virtual nursing program introduces innovative possibilities in patient care workflows by connecting the care in the complex patient journey. From admissions and discharges to continuous patient monitoring, patients benefit from an additional team member dedicated to their care. We anticipate this additionally offering our nurses time for patients that need more hands-on care.”

“Having eyes and ears in every room enables remote caregivers to respond more effectively to the needs of patients and bedside staff across the enterprise,” said Wendy Deibert, Chief Nursing Officer at Caregility. “This expansion represents a significant step forward in Lee Health’s digital health strategy, paving the way for future innovation at the intersection of virtual care, bedside care, and AI, and we’re honored to support their mission to advance the art of what’s possible in healthcare delivery.”

As a foundational partner, Caregility has worked closely with Lee Health to create a future-proof solution that supports a broad array of clinical workflows, offers AI capabilities, and can support local edge processing. The Caregility Cloud™ virtual care platform serves as the backbone for all of Lee Health’s virtual care programs.

Lee Health’s investment scales its virtual nursing program, supported by Caregility’s unique remote fleet management tools, which mitigate device support hurdles and improve operations. With around-the-clock monitoring and support, as well as seamless software updates via Caregility’s cloud-based administration portal, Lee Health can ensure that its telehealth devices remain operational with minimal on-site maintenance requirements.

“With our edge-processing, dual-camera APS200 Duo devices that support multiple concurrent workflows, we have built a commercial offering designed to be deployed at scale,” said Ron Gaboury, CEO of Caregility. “Our mission with Lee Health and other customers is to set the foundation for long-term growth and hospital-room-of-the-future innovation. This empowers care teams to maximize virtual care workflows while reducing up-front costs and operational challenges associated with maintaining a device in every room.”

Learn more about Lee Health’s telemedicine and virtual care services at https://www.leehealth.org/our-services/telemedicine. Learn more about Caregility at https://caregility.com.

About Lee Health
Since the opening of the first hospital in 1916, Lee Health has been a healthcare leader in Southwest Florida, constantly evolving to meet the needs of the community. A non-profit, integrated healthcare services organization, Lee Health is committed to the well-being of every individual served, focused on healthy living and maintaining good health. Healthcare services are conveniently located throughout the community in four acute care hospitals, two specialty hospitals, outpatient centers, walk-in medical centers, primary care and specialty physician practices, and other services across the continuum of care. Learn more at www.LeeHealth.org.

About Caregility
Caregility (caregility.com) is a telehealth solution provider connecting care everywhere. Designated as the Best in KLAS® Virtual Care Platform (non-EMR) in 2021, 2022, and 2023, Caregility Cloud™ brings bedside care, virtual encounters, and AI capabilities together at the point of care. Doctors, nurses, and patients around the world rely on our intelligent telehealth edge devices and virtual nursing, observation, and engagement applications to enhance clinical insights, patient safety, and efficiency. Trusted by over 75 health systems, deployed in more than 1,000 hospitals, and supporting over 30,000 connected devices and millions of virtual sessions annually, Caregility is helping transform healthcare delivery across inpatient, outpatient, and home settings.

Media Contact:
Jess Clifton
Senior Manager, Marketing Communications
jclifton@caregility.com
(678) 360-9043

Clinical Program Manager Spotlight: Peter Strecker



Peter Strecker’s healthcare story began in high school. With exposure to pre-hospital care as an EMT in his late teens, Peter ultimately chose nursing school and gained invaluable experience in critical care and ED nursing. However, it wasn’t long before Peter’s passion for improving healthcare access led him beyond the bedside.

Peter Strecker, Clinical Program Manager, Caregility
Peter Strecker
Clinical Program Manager, Caregility

As an educator, Peter quickly realized he could have a greater impact by helping other nurses provide better care. “On a unit, I could impact a handful of patients,” Peter recalls. “But in education, I was teaching hundreds of nurses across the country how to provide better care for their patients.” This shift from direct patient care ignited a passion to improve access to the best possible care for as many patients as possible.

That passion evolved to virtual care about 10 years ago. Leveraging experience from roles with both vendors and health systems, Peter helps healthcare systems develop, implement and ultimately drive adoption of their virtual care strategy.  “I love that every day I get to use technology to improve access to quality care for patients, anywhere, anytime.”

As the newest Clinical Program Manager at Caregility, Peter supports integrating virtual care into hospital workflows with a focus on leveraging the Control Hub to monitor and quantify the benefits of the Caregility Cloud™ virtual care platform. Drawing on his clinical background and experience in business development and healthcare IT working with many of the top health systems in the nation, Peter brings a unique perspective to his role.

Peter emphasizes that “patients want to see clinicians and clinicians want to see patients. The more conveniently we can facilitate that connection, the more likely we are to achieve successful and sustainable adoption.”

Looking ahead, Peter envisions a healthcare landscape that continues to move beyond the hospital walls to offer patients and care teams more flexibility.



“As reimbursement models and incentives continue to evolve, healthcare will naturally gravitate to providing the right level of care to the right patients at the right time.”

– Peter Strecker



Peter sees a future where care is delivered more efficiently and conveniently outside of the 4 walls of a healthcare facility in 8-minute appointment blocks.  “With the explosion of chronic health issues, particularly in the US, wellness is largely about human behavior and helping individuals make better choices,” Peter notes. “While AI and ML improve by leaps and bounds every day, comforting patients and families, changing behaviors, and reinforcing long-term accountability will largely rely on human interactions for the foreseeable future.” 

For healthcare organizations looking to implement virtual care programs, Peter offers practical advice. First and foremost, he emphasizes the importance of having stakeholders clearly define and articulate the problems they want to address. From there, robust ideation led by those stakeholders and end users will yield the most sustainable results.  Peter also encourages organizations to be open to leveraging outside expertise. 

Demonstrating meaningful outcomes—clinically, operationally, and financially—is critical; establishing benchmarks and baselines to measure success is essential.  Develop a solid plan and strategy that meets those explicit objectives and goals.    

In a field as dynamic and complex as virtual care, credibility is paramount and something Peter takes very seriously. Peter’s lifelong dedication to healthcare—from EMS to bedside nursing to being a trusted guide, helping navigate the evolving landscape of virtual care—is a testament to Peter’s commitment to bringing positive change in healthcare.


Interested in connecting with a Caregility Clinical Program Manager to discuss your virtual care strategy? Contact us today!

Technology’s Impact on Nurse Satisfaction

We’re in a period of tech advancement that the World Economic Forum has dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Characterized by physical, digital, and biological worlds coming together, this period is one where tech enablement is a given, allowing us to shift our focus to finetuning the application of converging technologies.

In the Forward of “Nursing Satisfaction: What Matters Most at Work,” Ascom North America Managing Director Kelly Feist points to healthcare as a key market where you can see this revolution unfolding. Comfort with technology in healthcare picked up significantly after the pandemic, leading providers to rethink traditional care models through a new lens of digital empowerment. Today, the integration of connected devices, remote support, and AI into clinical workflows is forever changing how medical teams deliver care.

As Feist sees it, intelligent workflow technologies are more essential than ever in healthcare, due in large part to rising pressure on bedside nurses. In the Ascom nursing satisfaction survey, nurses cited increased patient loads, having to care for sicker patients, and working longer hours as drawbacks driving them away from the profession.

So, what can hospitals and health systems do to improve nurse satisfaction and retention?

Ascom notes that nurses are looking for value-adds that make the job worth doing. “This expectation can come in the form of traditional benefits like higher compensation as well as softer benefits, like greater flexibility in working hours and having mechanisms in place to make their job easier by delivering care more intelligently, efficiently, and collaboratively.”

Naturally, nurses want to be paid more for intensifying workloads, but technology is also influential in the fight for nurse talent. Almost 60% of nurses surveyed said that a hospital’s suite of technology tools was an important factor in deciding whether to take a job. Nurses want technologies to drive efficiency, give them more time with patients, and automate the capture of information into a centralized source.

Source: Ascom, Nursing Satisfaction: What Matters Most at Work

Feist highlights three takeaways from the report:

1 – Technology designed for clinical workflows consistently ranks high for addressing some of the key challenges nurses identify as negatives in their jobs. Nurses’ number one desire for workflow solutions was to eliminate redundant steps.

“Ascom identified that nurses, nurse assistants, or technicians manually measure as many as four to six vital signs per round, record each result on a chart, and then enter all of the data into the electronic health record (EHR), which could take up to three hours per shift.”

Thus the rising popularity of aware rooms and Virtual Nursing. These next-generation solutions allow bedside RNs to shift routine tasks like admissions and vitals capture to integrated devices and remote team members.

2 – Technology is increasing the time nurses directly spend with patients. The automation and remote redistribution of routine tasks are freeing up time for bedside nurses to focus on what matters to them – patient engagement.

Interestingly, virtual patient engagement channels are also offering nurses new ways to build uninterrupted relationships with patients, and supporting career extension for older, experienced nurses to continue providing patient and staff support.

3 – Technology can aid in proactive care, giving clinicians a practice “safety net” to anticipate, recognize, and intervene before a sentinel event occurs. By augmenting patient coverage with virtual eyes, ears, and sensors, care teams are alerted to potential health threats earlier, improving downstream outcomes.

The ability to manage alerts to mitigate alarm fatigue and highlight actionable cues in the ocean of new information that providers are inheriting is becoming more important.

Today, technology plays a crucial role in supporting caregivers’ ability to provide the best patient care possible. With sicker patients seeking care, limited clinician pools, and a pending surge in elderly patient populations, empowering nurses with intelligent workflow solutions not only improves nurse satisfaction today, it also modernizes care models to ensure success in the future landscape of care delivery.

Responsible Health AI

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Responsible Health AI

Responsible Health AI | Caregility

Responsible Health AI with Caregility Cloud™ 

At its core, healthcare delivery is a human undertaking skillfully tailored to meet the needs of each individual patient.

At Caregility, we understand that AI will never replace the intuitive human touch of dedicated caregivers. What we believe AI can do is empower clinicians by automating routine tasks so they can focus on what truly matters.

Schedule a discover call below to learn more!

One Platform, Endless Possibilities

With intuitive clinical applications, purpose-built telehealth devices, an unparalleled integration ecosystem, and edge AI capabilities, Caregility Cloud™ helps you connect patients, bedside staff, remote support, and AI at the point of care.

Schedule a discovery call to learn more.

A Business Case for Virtual Nursing

Download the eBook

A Business Case
for Virtual Nursing

Examine the impact and opportunity of
the hybrid care model in inpatient settings.


 

Virtual Patient CarePilot Program Examples
Reduce Care CostsReal-World ROI
Clinician Patient CommunicationHow to Get Started

↓ WHAT’S INSIDE …

Business Case For Virtual Nursing - Caregility - thumbnail

What can Virtual Nursing do for your healthcare organization? 

Virtual Nursing helps health systems address critical issues such as nurse burnout, patient safety, and cost efficiency. This ebook offers key considerations and real-world examples to draw from as you develop your Business Case for Virtual Nursing.

Virtual Nursing Images

Table of Contents:

  • What’s fueling the rise of virtual nursing?
  • Augmenting care teams with a Virtual Nurse component
  • Virtual Nursing’s reach
  • Virtual Nursing’s return on value
  • Virtual Nursing KPIs
  • Lessons from Virtual Nursing pioneers
  • Getting started with virtual nursing
  • Future considerations

Lee Health Virtual Nursing Case Study

Baptist Health, Caregility Expand Partnership to Enhance Patient Care

EATONTOWN, N.J. and LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (May 9, 2024) – Baptist Health and Caregility are pleased to announce an expanded partnership aimed at enhancing patient care across the Arkansas-based healthcare organization.

Baptist Health will enhance its bedside care teams by increasing its usage of Caregility intelligent telehealth devices to more than 700 bedsides system-wide, doubling the footprint of the healthcare organization’s inpatient telehealth services. The initiative adds virtual clinical resources to support in-person bedside care and help improve patient outcomes. This collaboration underscores both organizations’ commitment to leveraging technology to transform healthcare delivery and meet the evolving needs of patients and staff.

The enhanced partnership builds upon Baptist Health’s previous success with virtual admissions and discharge programs, currently supported by more than 300 wall-mounted and cart-based Caregility telehealth devices across 11 hospitals. Since partnering on virtual care services with Caregility in 2021, telehealth session volume for Baptist Health has increased from roughly 1,000 virtual visits per quarter to more than 20,000.

A Baptist Health bedside care team member welcomes a virtual clinician into the patient room using Caregility’s APS250C mobile telehealth cart.
A Baptist Health bedside care team member welcomes a virtual clinician into the patient room using Caregility’s APS250C mobile telehealth cart.

In early 2023, Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute successfully launched Arkansas’ first virtual nursing program to provide additional support to bedside nurses, patients and families. The program then expanded to the healing ministry’s hospitals in Stuttgart, Malvern and Heber Springs. Thanks to positive patient outcomes and feedback, Baptist Health will roll out virtual care programs on every medical and surgical floor across the organization.

As part of this expansion, Baptist Health will deploy Caregility’s new, highly advanced telehealth devices and award-winning Caregility Cloud™ virtual care platform in more than 500 additional patient rooms at the health system’s flagship hospital, Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, as well as Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock and Baptist Health-Fort Smith. These devices will support the expansion of virtual nursing and the rollout of virtual support staff and virtual providers in the coming months. Additionally, a centralized hub to support virtual nursing and virtual sitters has opened on the Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock campus.

Baptist Health will implement Caregility’s new dual-camera APS200 Duo telehealth edge devices to support the next phase of its virtual nursing rollout.
Baptist Health will implement Caregility’s new dual-camera APS200 Duo telehealth edge devices to support the next phase of its virtual nursing rollout.

“Embracing virtual support as part of our acute care bedside support and quality strategy signifies a pivotal step forward in how we envision the future of healthcare at Baptist Health. Baptist Health first added virtual care in 2005, and we have continued to advance with the latest technology bringing us to where we are today with our partnership with Caregility. This expansion is more than an initiative; it’s a commitment to providing health equity across our state, setting new standards in patient and provider satisfaction, and furthering our mission to be the employer of choice in Arkansas.”

– Kourtney Matlock
President of Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute
and system post-acute services

The partnership exponentially increases the eyes and ears able to focus on patients, reducing pressure on bedside staff by redistributing tasks that a virtual nurse or support staff can field. As a result of increased telehealth services in acute care settings, healthcare systems see significant time savings and improved throughput (the process of moving patients through the hospital system from admission to discharge). Having virtual options at the bedside appeals to patients as well, as evidenced by improved patient satisfaction ratings in early field trials.

“We are at a point where this type of care model is not an option for our health systems, it is the only way they can address staffing issues and remain competitive,” said Caregility President and COO Mike Brandofino. “This partnership with Baptist Health is a great example of how Caregility can make it easy to deploy intelligent devices and services to enhance patient care through virtual programs.”​

Caregility Cloud™ allows health systems to easily centralize and scale programs such as Virtual Nursing, Virtual Patient Observation, Virtual Rounding, and Virtual Consultations in inpatient settings, improving staffing flexibility and workflow efficiency and making it easier to engage remote specialists and interpreters to support patient access and health equity. Trusted by more than 1,000 U.S. hospitals for high reliability, the platform is favored for its adaptability to a multitude of workflows and integrations with clinical platforms, including Epic.

To learn more, contact Caregility at info@caregility.com.

About Baptist Health
For more than a century, Baptist Health has delivered all its best in health care through Christian compassion and innovative services. Baptist Health, Arkansas’s most comprehensive healthcare organization, is here For You. For Life. – with more than 250 points of access that include twelve hospitals, urgent care centers, a senior living community, over 100 primary and specialty care clinics, a college with studies in nursing and allied health, and a graduate residency program. It is also the largest private not-for-profit healthcare organization based in Arkansas, providing care through the support of approximately 11,000 employees, groundbreaking treatments, renowned physicians and community outreach programs. For more information about Baptist Health, visit Baptist-Health.com, call Baptist Health HealthLine at 1-888-BAPTIST or download the myBaptistHealth app

About Caregility
Caregility (caregility.com) is a telehealth solution provider connecting care everywhere. Designated as the Best in KLAS® Virtual Care Platform (non-EMR) in 2021, 2022, and 2023, Caregility Cloud™ brings bedside care, virtual encounters, and AI capabilities together at the point of care. Doctors, nurses, and patients around the world rely on our intelligent telehealth edge devices and virtual nursing, observation, and engagement applications to enhance clinical insights, patient safety, and efficiency. Trusted by over 75 health systems, deployed in more than 1,000 hospitals, and supporting over 30,000 connected devices and millions of virtual sessions annually, Caregility is helping transform healthcare delivery across inpatient, outpatient, and home settings.

Media Contact:
Jess Clifton
Senior Manager, Marketing Communications
jclifton@caregility.com
(678) 360-9043

Hybrid Care Innovation at UMass Memorial Health

Digital innovation is a cornerstone of UMass Memorial Health’s strategy, garnering the health system impressive accolades including HIMSS Stage 7 certification for EMR adoption, CHIME’s Most Wired Level 8 certification, and Epic Gold Stars Level 10 status.

Dave Smith, Senior Director of Digital Innovation for UMass Memorial Health, attributes his organization’s competitive edge to a physician-led leadership team that truly embraces digital transformation. UMass Memorial has been delivering hybrid care for the better part of 20 years through its flagship eICU and tele-stroke programs. The throes of the pandemic and ensuing challenges related to patient safety, capacity management, patient flow, and staffing shortages reignited interest in hybrid care innovation, leading the health system to pursue additional programs like hospital at home, remote observation, and remote patient monitoring (RPM) in recent years.

In the enlightening session “Hybrid Care Innovation: The ROI of Bedside Virtual Care at Scale,” part of Becker’s Healthcare’s 2024 Digital Health and Telehealth Virtual Event, Smith sat down with Caregility President and COO Mike Brandofino to share compelling insights into the transformative hybrid care initiatives his organization is pursuing, how his team approaches ROI, and what it takes to scale new hybrid care models.



Hybrid Care’s Return on Value

UMass Memorial’s Hospital-at-Home program is a great example of how health systems are bringing resources to bear to improve outcomes, efficiency, and the experience for patients and clinicians. Patients receive twice-daily visits at home, supported by EMS partners working in collaboration with UMass doctors and nurses. They also have immediate access to virtual nursing support. The health system employs a four-to-one ratio for field nurses and a 30-to-one ratio for virtual nurses.

By bringing acute care to the patient’s home, the team has been able to expand capacity. “In our first year of operation, we saved over 3,000 bed days at our busiest hospitals,” shared Smith.

“With our eICU program, we monitor 150 critical care beds around the clock with intensivists on any given shift and the aid of a pharmacist at night,” Smith said. Since its inception in 2006, UMass’s eICU program has seen a 27% reduction in patient mortality and fewer patient complications, reducing care costs.

“For programs like tele-stroke and tele-psych, the ROI is really about improving access,” Smith continued. “But also, community hospitals see the ROI because they don’t have to hire and retain a full-time specialist. Instead, they buy professional services from a tertiary health system like UMass Memorial.”

The health system’s remote video monitoring (RVM) program has shown the strongest direct labor-cost ROI by enabling a single care team member to support six patients instead of conventional one-on-one observation ratios. “To take advantage of the full 12-patient panel, we assign each observation tech six primary patients and six backup patients for a total of 12,” Smith shared. “For every remote observation tech, we save $300,000 a year in direct labor costs.”

The health system is also leveraging AI solutions for radiology, ophthalmology, and ambient dictation to save providers valuable time. “I don’t think AI is going to replace doctors anytime soon, but I do think the ones who embrace it will probably surpass the ones who don’t,” noted Smith.

Scaling Hybrid Care Innovation

Smith sees digital health innovation as “the cost of doing business for healthcare systems that want to innovate and remain competitive.”

“We're in the process of building a new 72-bed inpatient facility that will open about a year from now and every bed will be wired with Caregility technology. We'll use the technology for a variety of use cases like virtual rounding, remote observation, specialty consults, patient/family communication, and even tele-ICU level care. And the funny thing is, it was an easy sell to hospital leadership because they understand the importance of hybrid care and balancing staffing demands. I just think hybrid care is the new standard.”
Dave Smith
Senior Director of Digital Innovation, UMass Memorial Health

Smith champions platforms that can be leveraged across the enterprise over point solutions. “To do anything at scale, it cannot exist in silos and pockets that are scattered throughout the organization,” he shared. “A good example is our commitment to building a digital medicine hub. We’re taking most of our virtual services and putting them under one roof. By doing so, not only will it be a showcase for our health system of the future, but we’re expecting to find operational synergies by having these virtual care teams collaborate in the same physical space. So, teams like eICU, transfer center, RVM, RPM, interpreter services, and virtual nursing will all be working alongside each other.”

“We’re also investing in a new digital innovation team to support rapid scalability. Digital health and especially AI is evolving so quickly that we need to operate at a faster pace to keep up. I’ll be leading a new multidisciplinary team to focus on emerging technologies that support our system initiatives and foster collaboration with our care teams. The whole idea is to identify opportunities, experiment with proofs of concept, fail fast, if necessary, iterate, and then deliver a solution or look at alternatives.”

“People are embracing technology in ways never thought possible and it’s making hybrid care models not only plausible but also practical.”

Watch the full session recording:  Hybrid Care Innovation: The ROI of Bedside Virtual Care at Scale