Nurses may be leaving the bedside, but many are still caring for patients. And in some cases, that care is far more valuable — for both the patient and the nurse.

During #NationalNursesWeek, I have to sympathize with my former health system colleagues. The COVID-era staffing shortages just won’t let up. Hospitals are having an impossible time keeping enough nurses to safely treat all the patients who come through the doors on a typical day. It’s a problem that must be fixed.

But their unfortunate loss has become our reluctant gain.

At Wellvana, we have a relatively easy time filling our Care Manager roles with some of the finest RNs I’ve ever met (with a handful of openings in Florida and Arizona now). Many are desperate to continue caring for patients, just without all the physical demands and time away from their families that bedside nursing requires.

They come to us, as this shiny startup, and they’re somewhat surprised — it's still hard! No more 12-hour shifts on their feet, but they learn that treating patients over the phone presents some complicated challenges. Motivational interviewing is a science and an art. Figuring out what patients aren’t saying is just as important as hearing what they are.

But the wins are huge, and each nurse has my heartfelt thanks.

Nurses Get It Done

Our team started keeping track of success stories a few months ago. For many of these anecdotes, I can confidently say patients avoided hospitalization. Weekly calls reveal patients accidentally doubling up on their blood pressure pills, being unable to afford multiple life-saving prescriptions, having no way to get to their next critical appointment.

Our nurses step in, compassionately lead patients toward a solution and follow up to make sure everything goes well.

Value-based care doesn’t offer a playbook for how to help a patient in rural Arizona with depression and limited vision hitch a ride to the doctor. But a resourceful RN gets it done (in this particular case, linking the patient with a compassionate chaplain in the area).

Experience Pays

Nurses combine their considerable creative wit and their deep clinical know-how to keep patients healthy between appointments. Much of the “value” in value-based care is preventing unnecessary or avoidable hospitalizations. And in the process, our nurses are keeping patients from being an additional burden on short-staffed health systems.

Inside or outside a hospital, nurses are great collaborators. And given the freedom of working within value-based care — where it no longer matters whether certain help is billable — they can use all their skills and experience to keep patients healthy. And instead of just handling six patients per shift, they develop long-term relationships with dozens of patients.

Our nurses can only be great at their job because of how much they’ve seen caring for patients in-person. But remote care management gives nurses a way to continue in the field they love and still allows them to have a family and social life. Now they can take care of themselves so they can show up better for the people they’re caring for.