The future is here! Today’s guest is Paul Malito, Nurse Manager for UAB’s TeleICU. Malito says the lack of bedside experience among nurses is a problem nationally. On average, nurses have fewer than six months of bedside experience, and that has been further limited by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past three years. An operations center for the Tele-ICU and Tele-Acute Nursing units connects less experienced bedside nurses with those who have more experience.

According to Malito, telehealth helps accomplish two key goals for inpatient care: proactively addressing changing patient conditions and making more efficient use of experienced nurses’ knowledge. Three new inpatient platforms take advantage of in-room technology that allows constant virtual monitoring and interaction to better respond to symptoms. Over 320 UAB Hospital patient rooms are wired with virtual patient monitoring equipment that enables nurses to observe and interact with patients with audio and/or video, communicate with bedside nurses, and engage emergency alarms.

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