Nurses embrace new technology after COVID impact, staffing shortages

One major repercussion of the COVID-19 pandemic is the impact it had on the people who care for us every day. Three years later, staffing remains a major struggle for hospitals due to a major exodus of nurses and health care professionals. 

One company with hospitals in Denver has a new way to navigate that by using technology like never before.       

After 10 years in nursing, Michael Hayden is adjusting to a new way of health care. Now each day, he helps dozens of patients at the same time. 

"I'm looking at their labs, Hayden said. "I'm especially looking at trends." 

As a virtual RN for HealthOne, Hayden now monitors people at eight hospitals in two states. For him, it's still nursing, but in a different way than he became familiar with before and during the pandemic. 

"I was looking to get completely out of nursing in a way, but when I saw this opportunity, it was a chance to use all that experience and knowledge that I had gained over the years to help new nurses," Hayden said.  

Hayden is one of 65 health professionals in the hospital system's new virtual command center, a place where health care meets technology and artificial intelligence. Each day, they monitor vitals, do paperwork, and watch high-risk patients by webcam. 

"They can beam in, pull up the record, go into the room, assess the patient right there," said Ryan Thornton, Chief Nurse Executive for the Continental division of HealthOne. 

According to Thornton, this new command center not only improves the quality and value of care but also better supports overburdened hospital staff.  

"A lot of the areas that keep them out of the room and talking with the patient right now, the behind-the-scenes kind of work that they have to do, we're going to be able to eliminate a lot of that," Thornton said. "That'll put the nurse with the patient at the bedside, where they want to be." 

Hayden has been on board for a year now, monitoring patient trends and helping young nurses virtually. 

"I can sort of train a bunch of nurses a little bit every day," he said. "It's rewarding."  

Hayden calls the new way of doing things, "intellectual nursing." Others at HealthOne call it the future. 

"It's a pickup of what we should have been doing all along, and now getting into the health care system, and then the acceleration of where's the end of it," Thornton said. "I don't think we've scratched the surface of it yet."