The Promising Future of Virtual Sitting & Nursing

Virtual sitting and nursing software, which helps healthcare professionals remotely observe and interact with patients, is changing the way organizations provide care and ensure patient safety while enhancing efficiency and overall healthcare outcomes. KLAS recently started measuring some of the solutions available in the market and shared our findings in our first-ever Virtual Sitting & Nursing 2023 report. Interviewed customers are seeing promising early outcomes, and we are eager to see how this market progresses over time.

Virtual Sitting & Nursing Is Receiving Attention

Healthcare organizations are interested in using virtual care solutions for inpatient use cases and to address staffing shortages; their goal is to improve outcomes and find care-delivery efficiencies that were previously unavailable. Additionally, organizations want to use virtual care software to drive financial benefits while ensuring positive patient outcomes. We at KLAS often receive inquiries about virtual sitting and nursing solutions, especially since the latter is a newer use case. It is exciting that we can share early perspectives about this emerging market. 

There are now multiple vendors in this space, and although not all of them have large customer bases, the fact that there is a variety of players allows us to provide more unique insights on the current landscape. The report is an introduction to vendors that are focused on virtual sitting, but it also provides an overview of additional vendors offering virtual sitting and nursing capabilities. We hope organizations have opportunities to leverage virtual care solutions from vendors they are already engaged with.

Are Customer Organizations Seeing an ROI?

One factor that organizations must consider regarding virtual sitting and nursing is the up-front investment in hardware. It isn’t cheap to invest in the necessary equipment to implement these programs or utilize these technologies, so understandably, there is a significant concern about ROI and whether the investment is worthwhile. KLAS is still in the early stages of measuring outcomes in this space, but so far, interviewed organizations report positive results. Many say they have reduced adverse patient events, which has enhanced financial and clinical outcomes. There have also been positive financial outcomes thanks to alleviated staffing burdens. 

Further, we found that respondents largely feel optimistic about their solutions; 98% of respondents plan to keep their solution, regardless of which vendor they use. This indicates that once organizations find a solution that works for them, they are likely to stick with it because it provides value. The impact on staffing shortages has also been overwhelmingly positive. Despite being in the early stages of using virtual sitting and nursing solutions, provider organizations believe these solutions are worth the initial hardware investment.

Anticipated Changes as the Market Matures 

As time goes on, we anticipate seeing an increase in adoption of virtual sitting and nursing tools, both from organizations who start using them for the first time and from organizations who are currently using them and want to expand usage across their enterprise. Of course, expansion will depend on organizations’ budgets and the durability of the equipment they use.

Further, there may be consolidation among vendors (we have seen this in other markets like remote patient monitoring), so the solutions offered in the market two years from now may look totally different from what is available today. We may even see more virtual sitting and nursing solutions being incorporated into broader virtual care platforms, which is something we are already seeing today.

Looking Forward to Future Research

Because this market is new, there is still so much to learn. We are particularly interested in learning more about virtual nursing, which is currently seeing lower adoption than virtual sitting—what tasks are remote nurses actually performing? How is the software being used? We also want to learn more about what other inpatient solutions and functionalities can be integrated into virtual sitting and nursing software.

We are excited to talk more in depth about virtual sitting and nursing as we continue to collect more research. As more players enter the market and as more organizations adopt solutions, there will be even more insights to share. For further details, be sure to check out the report.

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