Two-thirds of nurse leaders say they're planning telehealth nursing. Almost none of them say when, and a plan isn't a posting.
It's still worth tracking. Intent this widespread surfaces as job titles a year or two later, and this survey names the titles.
Where the roles are appearing
The work leaders describe is five jobs. Admission support, post-visit follow-up, chronic disease management, behavioral health screening, and backup for bedside RNs all sit under the same "virtual nurse" banner and ask completely different things of you.
Two-thirds of nurse leaders are planning virtual nursing.
The FutureCare Nursing 2025 survey reads as intent, not live programs — and it names the doors in.
The leadership signal
“Plan to launch” is intent, not a count of live programs. Judge each posting on the program behind it, not the trend.
Two examples of virtual nursing work
Admission support
Post-visit follow-up
The staffing half of the survey is the more useful half. Leaders name informatics, care coordination, and telehealth-trained bedside experience as what they need to make any of it run. Three separate doors, three separate preparation paths, and the first two are reachable from a unit you already work on.
A posted virtual role can be a pilot or a program
The distance between "we're planning telehealth" and "we run a virtual nursing unit" is where nurses get burned. A pilot can end. A program that has been running has a schedule, a backup plan, and somebody whose whole job is the platform.
What stage is the program in?
Pilot, first year, or established. Ask how many nurses work in it today.
What does this role cover?
Admissions, follow-up, chronic care, behavioral health screening, or bedside support. Those are different jobs with one title.
What experience do you require?
Remote doesn't mean entry-level. Plenty of virtual roles want more bedside years.
What platform, and what training?
Ask what happens when it fails mid-shift and who you call.
Where does this role sit if the pilot ends?
A good answer exists. Ask for it.
Judge the program, not the trend
Leaders point at value-based care as the catalyst, and a technology budget can be cut. Read that as a signal about how long the funding lasts.
The category isn't a fad. That still tells you nothing about the posting in front of you, which has to prove itself the same way any other posting does.
See what's open in telehealth and remote nursing.
Notes
- Leader intent, the support roles named, and the value-based care finding: FutureCare Nursing 2025 survey (Wolters Kluwer Lippincott Solutions), 157 nurse leaders, as reported by Telehealth.org, 24 April 2025; checked 20 July 2026.
- "Plan to launch" is stated intent; the survey doesn't count live programs.
