Rural health nurse leaders across the country continue to navigate a care environment marked by increasing patient acuity, limited access, rising complexity of care, and staffing models that don’t consistency support the delivery of top quality, safe and efficient care. The recently enacted Medicaid reductions will add additional pressure for rural hospitals already challenged to stabilize their workforce and maintain efficient operations.
Against this backdrop, the Rural Health Transformation Fund offers rural hospitals a chance to strengthen clinical teams and care delivery. It is a substantial, but time-limited investment. Nurse leaders must approach this moment with clarity, to make the best choices that support safe care, precision workflows, and a sustainable care model.
As a CNO, I see this not as a policy moment, but a clinical one. It is an opportunity to revitalize the workforce, modernize care delivery, and provide nurses and interprofessional teams with the support they need to practice safely, efficiently, and confidently.
What This Moment Means for Nurse Leaders
The Rural Health Transformation Fund directs resources toward technology-enabled care, workforce development, training, infrastructure, and improved reporting. These priorities align with what nurse leaders have been asking for: support that eases clinical strain, strengthens patient safety practices, and creates more efficacious workflows for their teams.
Nurse leaders are responsible for care quality, staff resilience, and daily operational decisions that keep units operating safely and efficiently. They balance staffing shortages, regulatory requirements, rising acuity, and mitigate the physical and emotional toll on teams. Intelligent investments help stabilize; poor decisions add burden. Any strategy must begin by considering the impact it will have on the people delivering the care.
Where Virtual Care Strengthens Clinical Teams
Virtual care, when developed with consistent input from front-line staff, helps nurse leaders create safer, more efficient, and more sustainable models of care. Virtual care is not a replacement for nurses. It is an extension of their talent that gives clinicians what they need most: more time with their patients, real-time support from expert resources, and expanded visibility for at-risk patients.
Here are the areas nurse leaders can leverage the Fund to strengthen their teams through implementation of successful virtual care programs.
- Workforce stability and safer staffing decisions
One of the most pressing challenges for nurse leaders is maintaining safe staffing levels, particularly during periods of shortage. Virtual observation reduces 1:1 sitter burden by supporting a 1-to-many observer to patient ratio. This enables the majority of 1:1 sitter staff to be re-deployed to a full assignment that improves a unit’s capacity to provide timely, safe, high-quality care for all patients. AI-enabled technology improves early recognition of potential safety risks and proactive patient redirection by virtual observers, , improving the efficiency of bedside staff by reducing the need to react to alarms and call lights. Similarly, virtual nursing offloads time-intensive tasks from the bedside nurse, enabling them to spend more impactful time with their patients. Virtual nursing also provides real-time support from expert nurses to guide less-experienced nurses at the bedside and can identify early warning signs of patient deterioration and mobile resources to prevent an unplanned transfer to critical care.
Effectively implemented virtual care models enhancethe quality and safety of bedside care and improve the staff experience of care, promoting resilience and reducing turnover.
- More agile clinical workflows
Clinical teams need robust processes that support proactive care. Virtual observation provides continuous, consistent support for patients who require close monitoring. Virtual nursing can offload time-intensive, high-volume, and high-impact tasks like teaching, admissions, discharges, and care coordination in an uninterrupted session which improves overall effectiveness of the intervention. To achieve optimal impact when integrating virtual resources, it is important that virtual nursing workflow development includes a comprehensive re-design of each process, removing tasks that no longer add value and synthesizing activities for optimal impact and efficiency.
- Flexible, reliable infrastructure that supports safe care
Technology adoption excels when its integration reduces complexity. Simple, dependable tools—mobile carts, in-room units, and cloud-native software with leading edge-features—quickly transports virtual support to the bedside.
When every bed can be “virtual-ready,” nurse leaders provide their staff with the optimal flexibility to leverage virtual resources whenever needed.
- Education that builds confidence and capability
Training is essential to any new care model. Nurse leaders need educational support that is practical, accessible, and grounded in the realities of daily clinical practice. The Fund allows hospitals to invest in training and technical assistance that sets teams up for success, not uncertainty.
Well prepared, knowledgeable teams provide safer, more consistent care.
- Data that guides nursing decisions and protects funding
The Fund ties future support to demonstrated, measurable outcomes. Nurse leaders need timely data to show where safety can be improved, workflows require adjustment, and staffing pressures persist. Real-time dashboards and reporting give leaders evidence to act on now to iteratively improve care delivery.
This is not about surveillance. It is about providing clinical leaders with clarity to advocate for resources, improve care processes, articulate related impact, and guide data-driven decisions.
Leading Forward with Intention
Nurse leaders have always been the stabilizing force in clinical environments. They guide teams through uncertainty, ensure safe care at the bedside, and balance operational pressures with compassion and accountability.
The Rural Health Transformation Fund provides nurse leaders with a window to strengthen their workforce, enhance patient safety practices, and build more sustainable models of care. Virtual care is one tool that can help make that possible. When implemented thoughtfully, it becomes a clinical resource that lightens the load, enhances visibility, and creates space for clinicians to practice at the top of their license.
This moment calls for intentional leadership. The decisions made today will shape how care is delivered long after the Fund ends. My hope is that nurse leaders use this opportunity to advance their care teams, strengthen their workflows, and enhance a robust foundation of care that supports patients, their communities, and those who serve them.