Long before virtual care became a pandemic-era buzzword, Ochsner Health was building the foundation for telehealth success. The Louisiana health system launched its first telemedicine program in 1998, then expanded aggressively into tele-stroke care in 2009 as a shortage of stroke specialists spread across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.What began as a way to stretch limited expertise across state lines eventually evolved into something much larger: a systemwide effort to support overwhelmed inpatient teams, reduce variability in care and improve patient safety through centralized virtual care operations.Access and capacity"Ochsner Health has more than 25 years of experience using virtual care to address access and capacity challenges," said Rachelle Longo, assistant vice president of virtual care at Ochsner and a member of the American Telemedicine Association Center of Digital Excellence Steering Committee. She said Ochsner recognized that mounting inpatient pressures looked familiar."The challenge was not whether virtual care could help, but how to move beyond isolated programs and intentionally scale a centralized, standardized virtual care model that could extend bedside teams, improve reliability and support care delivery across the health system."Inside Ochsner hospitals, workforce strain had been building for years. Bedside clinicians in telemetry, medical-surgical units and critical care departments were juggling growing patient acuity along with documentation, monitoring and coordination responsibilities.Rather than treating virtual care as a series of disconnected pilot programs, Ochsner leaders decided to create what Longo described as "an integrated clinical operating model, rather than a collection of standalone technologies or isolated programs."Not replacing cliniciansThe strategy centered on using virtual clinicians to support bedside teams, not replace them. Ochsner standardized virtual nursing, centralized telemetry, virtual ICU support and fall-prevention programs with clearly defined workflows and escalation pathways. Technology played a major role, but Longo said the larger emphasis was on governance, operational sustainability and clinical integration.Scaling the model across the health system required rapid experimentation and tight coordination between departments. Ochsner created a centralized leadership and operations team that worked with nursing leaders, physicians, IT, finance, quality and compliance teams. Programs were piloted and adjusted in real time, rather than delayed in pursuit of perfection."Training and onboarding emphasized partnership with bedside teams, reinforcing that virtual care was designed to support frontline clinicians, not replace them," Longo said.The results were significant. By shifting admissions, discharges, patient education and continuous monitoring responsibilities to virtual clinicians, bedside nurses gained more time for direct patient care. Ochsner leaders also reported greater staffing flexibility and less task overload for frontline workers during patient surges.Improved metricsPatient safety metrics improved as well. Centralized telemetry and continuous virtual surveillance allowed clinicians to identify patient deterioration earlier and intervene faster. Technology-enabled fall-prevention programs also helped reduce patient falls across facilities.Virtual nursing additionally improved discharge consistency and transitions of care, which contributed to lower readmission rates. Standardized discharge education and medication reconciliation workflows helped strengthen continuity of care after patients left the hospital.Perhaps most important, Longo said the project demonstrated that virtual care can function as a permanent operational model, rather than a temporary solution."By treating virtual care as a systemwide service, rather than a series of pilots, the proposal positioned Ochsner to scale responsibly and build a sustainable foundation for future virtual care growth across the inpatient environment," she said.Follow Bill's health IT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill SiwickiEmail him: [email protected]Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.WATCH NOW: The cost savings of SDOH