As health systems across the U.S. look for ways to stabilize the nursing workforce and reduce pressure at the bedside, Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health is scaling a virtual nursing model that is showing measurable impact across clinical, operational and workforce metrics.
The system has implemented the model across 1,075 beds and expects to reach nearly 3,000 by the end of its fiscal year in July, Julie Tuel, RN, system vice president of virtual care nursing practice transformation, told Becker’s. The program initially focused on medical-surgical and progressive care units but has since expanded into emergency departments and critical care, with exploration underway in ambulatory care, perioperative services and senior living.
The model embeds a virtual nurse directly into the care team as a fully integrated partner supporting bedside staff.
“That integrated piece is so important,” Ms. Tuel said. “We don’t sit on top of the team — we are integrated into the care model, and that’s what’s made us so successful.”
Growth has followed that approach, with front-line teams increasingly requesting the model as it demonstrates value in practice.
“That’s how we start building that trust,” she said. “And that’s really what’s helped scale and has people knocking on our door saying, ‘When can you get to us?’”
Between February and December 2025, the program facilitated more than 808,000 virtual interactions with patients, families and care teams. Rather than replacing bedside care, virtual nurses take on tasks that do not require physical presence, freeing clinicians to focus on direct patient care. These include admissions and discharges, patient education, medication reconciliation, participation in multidisciplinary rounds and helping advance care plans.
The approach is intentionally flexible, with virtual nurses adapting their level of support based on clinician experience. Early-career nurses receive more mentorship, while support for more experienced staff is tailored to their needs.
“We collaborate with the bedside and say, ‘What can we do today that will be helpful for you?’” Ms. Tuel said.
The most significant gains have been in workforce stability, particularly among early-career nurses. CommonSpirit has seen a roughly 41% to 47% reduction in first-year nurse turnover since implementing the model, according to Ms. Tuel.
The program has also been tied to improvements in clinical quality and patient experience, including a 21% reduction in both catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated bloodstream infections, as well as an approximately 25% increase in patient satisfaction scores tied to nurse communication.
Those improvements reflect both workload redistribution and the addition of a virtual mentorship layer, Ms. Tuel said.
“If you don’t have the support and the mentorship and expert nurses right there beside you, they will leave the field,” she said.
Employee satisfaction has also improved as bedside staff spend more time with patients and less time on administrative tasks.
While technology enables the model, leadership attributes its success to workflow integration and continuous performance improvement. The system tracks baseline metrics before implementation and evaluates performance monthly, focusing on process changes that drive outcomes rather than adding new tasks.
CommonSpirit also built much of its virtual care technology internally, allowing teams to quickly adjust workflows based on feedback from clinicians and patients.
“We hear from our patients, the bedside care team and our own virtual staff, where they say, ‘This isn’t working, I don’t like this, or I want to update the workflow, or let’s get technology to match,’” Ms. Tuel said. “We have the ability to do that much more freely than if we didn’t own our own software.”
Rather than relying on a single financial metric, the system evaluates return on investment across quality outcomes, operational performance, patient satisfaction and employee experience.
For other health systems, Ms. Tuel emphasized that early and sustained staff engagement is critical to success.
As experienced nurses leave the bedside and administrative burdens increase, virtual nursing may become a key strategy for sustaining the workforce.
“Virtual nursing brings the ability to remove those administrative tasks, but also brings an expert to the bedside to coach and mentor,” she said.
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