She came in on a Tuesday night.
Seventeen years old, sleeping in an ER bed, waiting for an in-patient placement. And she waited, with a sitter sitting nearby, keeping her safe, and trained enough to help if something went wrong.
She was safe. But safe is complicated in a hospital at 2am.
The sitter couldn’t leave her which meant the sitter couldn’t be anywhere else. Somewhere down the hall, a nurse was covering for both of them, once again stretched thinner than she already was in an ER full of patients waiting for beds upstairs and a waiting room full of people yet to be seen.
This is what strain looks like from the inside. It’s a sleeping teenager and a system quietly imploding around her.
This is yet another time a virtual nurse could have released the pressure for the nurses on the floor.
At MUSC, which has VRNs working alongside bedside nurses, the relief is palpable.
On a recent survey, 89.8% of bedside nurses at The Medical University of South Carolina reported a decrease in overall workload after virtual nurses joined their care teams.
Because they have VRNs to help monitor patients like this sleeping teen.
The healthcare profession is struggling with increasing patient loads and demands. Nurses are burning out at alarming rates and throwing in the towel. It’s no wonder staff shortages are rampant.
And, like it or not, patient safety suffers.
We need VRNs.
Virtual Nursing Goes Beyond Fall Prevention
When many medical professionals are asked “What does a VRN do?” quite often the answer is “fall prevention.”
The image of the virtual nurse, alone with a screen, probably sipping a cup of coffee somewhere else, and who stops a patient’s fall isn’t necessarily wrong. They do prevent many falls. But it’s also limiting, akin to describing a hospital as a place that does X-rays. Technically, it’s true. It’s just not the whole truth.
It’s true that falls are a major concern in hospitals where vulnerable patients sometimes fall, and the costs and complications can be steep. It is true that this is a very important function of VRNs. But it’s also true that fall prevention is only a small part of what virtual nursing entails.
Traditional telesitter programs are observers. VirtuAlly’s VRNS do so much more.
Our remote observation programs are now comprehensive patient safety platforms. We do prevent falls, about a 50 percent potential fall reduction.
We also carefully monitor vitals and deterioration alerts, watch carefully for seizure activity, answer high call-light usage and interact with patients. We protect those who are agitated or suffering with behavioral health concerns. We prevent elopement, line and tube tampering and offer low-level suicidal ideation support.
We keep patients safe around the clock by becoming that extra set of eyes for a bedside nurse who cannot be everything, everywhere, all at once.
We let bedside nurses be nurses with an added layer of protection. We are an additional safety tool.
Counting the Costs
Our teen spent nearly three days waiting for an in-patient placement. During that entire time, a 1:1 sitter stayed nearby. Protective? Yes. Effective? Yes. Expensive? Also, yes.
Very expensive and very important.
Hospital sitter programs now cost facilities anywhere from $500,000 to over $2 million annually. Those costs will continue to rise as staffing shortages worsen. When hospitals run short on sitters, they don’t leave patients unmonitored. They pull nurses, CNAs, and technicians for bedside observation.
While it’s important to keep those who need monitoring safe, that redirection takes a needed professional off the floor for every other patient, possibly slowing or hampering their care. This puts more pressure on remaining staff and, research shows, reduces patient and professional satisfaction significantly.
Our teen could have easily been monitored by a VRN. She would have remained safe but for a fraction of the cost and stress for the care team.
For every nurse driven out by an unsustainable workload, the cost to replace that one employee is a mind-boggling $60,000. Recruiting time, onboarding, and lost productivity add up. With as many as 20 percent of nurses considering leaving the profession by 2029, the potential expenses and pressures are enormous.
Healthcare systems nationwide are opening up to virtual nursing programs because of costs and the realization that with VRNs in place, systems simply run better.
Really, with VRNs, everyone does better.
VirtuAlly reports a 50 percent potential fall reduction. VirtuAlly’s STAT response time in 2025 was less than 15 seconds for a bedside nurse to be at a patient’s side. Virtual nurses have prevented patient self-harm, stopped line and tube tampering, and as we know 89.8 percent of nurses feel less burdened by an overwhelming workload.
Virtual nursing programs save healthcare systems up to 90% percent in-person 1:1 sitter costs. On average, that’s $150,000 in annual savings per unit.
One prevented fall saves about $14000 in medical costs from extended stays.
And, as already stated, one retained nurse saves systems $60,000.
These are not abstract metrics.
These are patients who went home.
These are happier employees.
These are better numbers.
These are human and financial costs.
The Future of Virtual Nursing
The healthcare industry is no longer debating if virtual nursing matters. They know it does.
Seventy-four percent of hospital leaders believe virtual nursing is or will become an important part of caring for patients. The questions decision makers are focused on now are how fast they should move, what that movement should look like, and how AI will play a part.
Some of those questions are clear. Others are more abstract.
It is clear, however, that VRNs are beneficial for patient safety. Like traditional hospital safety practices, Virtual nursing has its own space in the protocols.
Quality reporting frameworks are catching up, too. While VirtuAlly does so much more than fall prevention, there’s no denying that the added safety and fall reduction numbers are critical. NDNQI benchmarks, value-based care reimbursement, and CMS quality metrics all reward reductions in falls. Hospitals that embrace and install virtual nursing programs are not just improving safety. They are protecting their financial performance.
It’s better for patient safety. It’s better for staff mental health. It’s better for medical systems financially.
Virtual nursing is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a “must have” comprehensive safety tool.
The teenager eventually went home. We know she had a 1:1 sitter for 72 hours, pulled from other spaces in the ER. We know what the research shows, what the numbers reflect, and what 89.8 percent of nurses are telling us with their own words. Virtual nursing is needed now for the teenager waiting, for the nurse who gets to stay on her floor. For a safer system for everyone.