As health systems nationwide struggle to stabilize nursing workforces, CommonSpirit Health is proving that virtual nursing can deliver measurable results. The Chicago-based system has achieved a 41% to 47% reduction in first-year nurse turnover — a striking outcome that also reflects broader gains in clinical quality, patient satisfaction, and employee experience.
The Nursing Retention Crisis Driving Change
Early-career nurse attrition is one of healthcare’s most expensive problems. Replacing a single registered nurse can cost upward of $50,000 when recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity are factored in. Moreover, new nurses who lack mentorship and support at the bedside often exit the profession entirely within their first year.
CommonSpirit recognized this pattern and responded with a model built on integration, mentorship, and workflow support — not simply remote monitoring.
How CommonSpirit’s Virtual Nursing Model Works
The model embeds a virtual nurse as a fully integrated care team partner, not a supplementary tool sitting above existing workflows. This distinction is central to its success, according to Julie Tuel, RN, system vice president of virtual care nursing practice transformation.
“We don’t sit on top of the team — we are integrated into the care model, and that’s what’s made us so successful,” Tuel told Becker’s.
Virtual nurses handle tasks that do not require physical presence. These include patient admissions and discharges, medication reconciliation, patient education, multidisciplinary rounds participation, and advancing care plans. Consequently, bedside nurses gain more time for direct patient interaction.
Support levels also adapt to clinician experience. Early-career nurses receive active mentorship and coaching, while experienced staff get targeted assistance tailored to their current workload and preferences. This personalized approach builds trust quickly.
“We collaborate with the bedside and say, ‘What can we do today that will be helpful for you?'” Tuel said.
Scaling Across Units and Settings
CommonSpirit has deployed the model across 1,075 beds and plans to expand to nearly 3,000 by the end of its fiscal year in July. Initially, the program targeted medical-surgical and progressive care units. Since then, it has expanded into emergency departments and critical care settings.
Additionally, the system is actively exploring deployment in ambulatory care, perioperative services, and senior living. This breadth signals a shift from pilot to enterprise-level strategy.
Between February and December 2025, the program facilitated more than 808,000 virtual interactions with patients, families, and care teams — a figure that underscores just how embedded the model has become in daily operations.
Workforce Results: 41% Turnover Reduction
The most significant impact has come in workforce stability. CommonSpirit has achieved a 41% to 47% reduction in first-year nurse turnover since implementing virtual nursing. That number reflects what happens when new nurses feel supported, mentored, and valued rather than overwhelmed.
“If you don’t have the support and the mentorship and expert nurses right there beside you, they will leave the field,” Tuel said.
Employee satisfaction has also risen. As administrative tasks shift to virtual nurses, bedside staff spend more of their shift on direct patient care — the reason most nurses chose the profession in the first place.
Front-line teams now actively request access to the program. “That’s how we start building that trust,” Tuel noted. “And that’s really what’s helped scale and has people knocking on our door saying, ‘When can you get to us?'”
Clinical Quality and Patient Satisfaction Gains
Virtual nursing has delivered measurable improvements in patient outcomes. CommonSpirit reports a 21% reduction in both catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs). Furthermore, patient satisfaction scores tied to nurse communication have risen by approximately 25%.
These gains stem from two converging forces: better workload distribution across the care team and the addition of a virtual mentorship layer that elevates clinical decision-making at the bedside.
Technology Built for Flexibility
CommonSpirit built much of its virtual care technology in-house. This decision allows teams to adjust workflows rapidly based on feedback from clinicians, patients, and virtual staff — without waiting for a third-party vendor to make updates.
“We hear from our patients, the bedside care team and our own virtual staff, where they say, ‘This isn’t working, I don’t like this, or I want to update the workflow,'” Tuel said. “We have the ability to do that much more freely than if we didn’t own our own software.”
The system tracks baseline metrics before each implementation and evaluates performance monthly. Rather than simply adding new tasks, the focus remains on process changes that actually move outcomes.
Return on investment is also measured broadly — across quality outcomes, operational efficiency, patient satisfaction, and employee experience — rather than through a single financial metric.
Lessons for Other Health Systems
Early and sustained staff engagement is the foundation of success, according to Tuel. Health systems that want to replicate CommonSpirit’s results should involve front-line nurses in program design from the start, rather than implementing technology top-down.
Virtual nursing is not a replacement for bedside care. Instead, it is a strategic layer that removes administrative burden and adds expert mentorship exactly where new nurses need it most. As experienced nurses age out of the workforce and administrative pressures grow, this model offers a replicable path forward.
“Virtual nursing brings the ability to remove those administrative tasks, but also brings an expert to the bedside to coach and mentor,” Tuel said.
