Saint Luke's Gives Nurses Their Own Virtual Care Unit

The Kansas City-based health system has opened an inpatient virtual nursing unit that is managed almost entirely by nurses, and is fielding calls from health systems across the country interested in the concept. A Kansas City–based health system is putting nurses at the center of the virtual care platform and seeing positive results not only in patient and nurse satisfaction, but clinical and business outcomes as well.

Saint Luke's Health System opened its virtual nursing unit in 2018. Launched by Susie Krug, chief nursing officer at Saint Luke's East Hospital in Lee's Summit, Missouri, the unit sits on a telemedicine platform built by Teladoc Health and managed by nurses at the health system’s technology center in downtown Kansas City. "It's a new model of care," says Jennifer Ball, the health system's director of virtual care. "It's there to [help] the nurses as well as the patients, with a focus on virtual care. Virtual everything is going to be our future."