Innovation in Nurse Staffing Models: Implementing a Tele–Critical Care Nurse Program in a Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

A pediatric tele–critical care nursing program provides an extra layer of surveillance for patients and alerts bedside nurses of abnormal trends to mitigate adverse events. Although workforce turnover combined with patient complexity and acuity in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit strains the sustainability of a healthy work environment, these variables have also opened the door to an innovative approach to tele–critical care nursing care delivery. In addition to virtual surveillance, a clinical bedside intervention was developed to provide hands-on assistance to bedside nurses. This article describes the evolution of this novel technique for enhancing nursing care delivery.