Warren County's Bedside Connect Program Brings Patients, Nurses Closer

Since moving to its new location in 2021, Warren Memorial Hospital (WMH) has embraced innovative solutions to enhance patient care. One such advancement is the implementation of a virtual nursing platform called Bedside Connect, a telemedicine technology garnering attention from health care systems across the U.S. and even as far away as Germany.

Nurses undergo specialized training to use Bedside Connect to monitor multiple patients from a specially equipped video monitoring station within the hospital. These virtual nurses complement the in-person interactions of bedside nurses. WMH currently has 12 trained virtual nurses.

The Bedside Connect allows floor nurses to focus more of their time on direct patient care. Tasks like taking admission history, performing discharges and educating patients about medications can now be efficiently handled by a virtual nurse who communicates to patients via a monitor at their bedside. These changes allow bedside nurses to spend more time with their patients, providing hands-on, patient-centered care.

Bedside Connect also enables WMH staff to involve a patient’s family, who can join conversations by video from remote locations across the United States. Conversations related to treatment plans, palliative care or other complex decisions can now benefit from the input of family members.

Specialists at other Valley Health locations are also able to evaluate and treat patients at WMH using Bedside Connect cameras in patient rooms. For example, wound care specialists at Valley Health’s Center for Advanced Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine use the ultra-high-resolution Bedside Connect cameras to evaluate patients in real time and provide treatment plans for their continued care. WMH staff can then provide the specialist’s recommended equipment and supplies to begin the treatment plan immediately, resulting in more efficient care.

BY THE NUMBERS

• 36 inpatient rooms, each outfitted with Bedside Connect technology

• 12 trained virtual nurses

• 1 hour per day on average is given back to each bedside nurse as a result of directing administrative tasks to a virtual nurse

• 200+ health care organizations have either visited WMH or joined a virtual presentation to learn about Bedside Connect capabilities