UH Lake West Medical Center go-live makes UH among the first hospital systems in the U.S. to fully implement a whole-hospital virtual nursing program
CLEVELAND and RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — University Hospitals has launched its Connected Care Team initiative at UH Lake West, making it one of the first hospitals in the nation to go live with a whole-hospital virtual nursing program. The initiative, powered by Vitalchat’s flexible AI-driven audio and video platform, builds on a successful initial phase that spanned six units and five hospitals and demonstrated strong benefits for patients, caregivers, and health system efficiency.
The Connected Care Team extends the reach of UH nurses through secure, high-definition video and two-way communication. Collaborative workflows enable the virtual team to support their bedside colleagues with admissions, discharges, patient education, monitoring, and urgent interventions. Working in tandem with bedside care teams, virtual nurses optimize capacity allowing bedside clinicians to spend more time providing focused hands-on care and building personal connections with patients.
In Phase 1, UH staffed one remote nurse per unit from a centralized command center. Early outcomes included:
- Higher patient experience and caregiver engagement scores than comparable units
- More efficient support for critical workflows such as admissions, discharges, pain assessments, and falls prevention
- Three clinical studies, including an FDA-supported trial evaluating AI to detect fall risks
“The success of Phase 1 gave us the confidence to expand to a whole-hospital launch,” said Brian Nelson, MHA, BSN, RN, Program Lead for the Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute at UH. “This isn’t just about technology, it’s about supporting every patient in every room with high-quality care and easing the burden on our caregivers.”
With the UH Lake West go-live, every inpatient unit now has access to virtual nursing support. UH will continue to expand the program, including piloting 24/7 operations, adding virtual patient observation, and broadening use cases into the emergency department and operating room.
“The Connected Care Team is exactly the kind of bold innovation the Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute was created to champion,” said Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD, UH Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer and Veale Distinguished Chair in Leadership and Clinical Transformation. “By reimagining how nurses deliver care, UH is proving it’s possible to simultaneously ease workforce strain, improve safety, and elevate the patient experience.”
Frontline leaders underscored the cultural shift: “All of the care team members are sharing their ideas and figuring out how to improve the system, often in real time,” said Michelle D. Hereford, MSHA, RN, FACHE, UH Chief Nursing Executive and Ethel Morikis Endowed Chair in Nursing Leadership. “We learned that innovation ignites energy. The joy and excitement in the care teams are palpable.”
“Vitalchat is proud to collaborate with University Hospitals as they set a new national standard for virtual nursing,” added Mike Raymer, CEO of Vitalchat. “UH is demonstrating how intelligent technology can transform care by supporting caregivers, improving outcomes, and creating lasting value for health systems.”
About the Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute
The Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute, part of UH, is a first-of-its-kind model dedicated to transforming healthcare organizations into dramatically safer and more cost-effective systems. Its team of strategists, designers, clinicians, and technologists works closely with UH Ventures, the Office of Strategy & Innovation, the Office of Clinical Transformation, and the Department of Operational Effectiveness to accelerate meaningful change.
About University Hospitals / Cleveland, Ohio
Founded in 1866, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of more than 20 hospitals (including five joint ventures), more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and over 200 physician offices in 16 counties throughout northern Ohio. The system’s flagship quaternary care, academic medical center, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Oxford University, Taiwan National University College of Medicine and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. The main campus also includes the UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women’s Hospital, Ohio’s only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. UH is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research programs in the nation, with more than 3,000 active clinical trials and research studies underway. UH Cleveland Medical Center is perennially among the highest performers in national ranking surveys, including “America’s Best Hospitals” from U.S. News & World Report. UH is also home to 19 Clinical Care Delivery and Research Institutes. UH is one of the largest employers in Northeast Ohio with more than 30,000 employees. Follow UH on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. For more information, visit UHhospitals.org.
About Vitalchat
Vitalchat delivers a flexible audio and video platform designed to transform healthcare delivery by addressing critical challenges like nursing shortages, procedural telehealth and care coordination with clinical teams, patients and their family members. Our technology utilizes AI to perform continuous real-time analysis of video, audio, and sensory data collected in the care setting to identify trends, predict risks, and flag anomalies that are then turned into meaningful alerts and automated actions that support the clinical teams in delivering efficient, safe and coordinated care. For more information about Vitalchat, visit www.Vitalchat.com
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SOURCE Vitalchat; University Hospitals
