By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Dec. 12, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Virtual nurses aren’t an effective way to help hospitals deal with a lack of staffing, a new study says.
Hospitals struggling to attract and retain nurses are trying out virtual nursing programs, in which nurses in remote locations rely on video and messaging technologies to keep tabs on patients, researchers said.
But these virtual nurses are taking little of the burden away from the flesh-and-blood nurses still patrolling hospital wards, researchers recently reported in JAMA Network Open.
“Virtual nursing programs have been heralded as an innovative silver bullet to hospitals’ nurse staffing challenges, but our findings show that most bedside nurses are not experiencing major benefits,” said lead researcher K. Jane Muir, an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Hospitals should be cautious about implementing virtual nursing programs,” she added in a news release. “There is no evidence that virtual nurses are a safe substitute for in-person nursing.”
For the new study, researchers surveyed 880 hospital nurses about their experiences working alongside virtual nurses to care for patients. The participants were all registered nurses located in 10 states.
More than half (57%) said virtual nursing programs don’t reduce their workload, and 10% said the tactic actually has increased their workload, results showed.
Most (53%) said working with virtual nurses improves the quality of patient care, but only 11% said that improvement is substantial.
“The data is mixed as to whether virtual nursing programs offer relief to in-hospital nurses and enhance the quality of patient care, which suggests hospitals should proceed cautiously in the absence of strong evidence about whether and under which conditions virtual nursing programs are safe and effective,” said senior researcher Karen Lasater, chair of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
“While there is mixed evidence about the value of virtual nursing programs, there is strong evidence that staffing more nurses at the bedside is linked to better outcomes for patients and nurses alike,” she added in a news release.
More information
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has more about virtual nurses in hospitals.
SOURCES: University of Pennsylvania, news release, Dec. 5, 2025; JAMA Network Open, Dec. 5, 2025
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