Avera Hospital in O’Neill receives three-year federal grant to extend virtual nursing

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) - Avera has received $1 million in funding for the Avera RURAL-UP: Solving Rural Workforce Challenges in the Upper Midwest with Virtual Patient Care program

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program awarded $1,017,126 over a three-year period to enhance access to virtual patient care and address workforce shortages across 28 rural end-user health care sites in South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Avera RURAL-UP implements virtual nursing models that enable clinical staff to provide care remotely. These models will support bedside nurses by managing time-consuming, non-hands-on tasks such as patient education, admissions, discharge protocols and safety surveillance, allowing bedside nurses to focus on direct patient care,