Remote jobs for nurses are booming among healthcare practitioners. From hospitals to specialized clinics, medics are adapting to the technological shifts in the industry and embracing accessible, flexible, and convenient ways of providing care to their patients. Hiring remote nurses is no longer a choice but a strategic move by health providers to better serve and reach their clientele.
Remote hiring presents various challenges to organizations that are trying it for the first time. Hiring remotely for nurses presents a bigger challenge, not only due to the nature of the work that nurses perform, but also the sensitivity of the data they handle. In this article, we highlight the key things you need to know about remote jobs for nurses as a healthcare employer, the common challenges in recruiting remote nurses, and how to overcome them and hire the best.
Things You Need to Know About Remote Jobs for Nurses
1. When to hire remote nurses
Is your facility growing? Are you serving a bigger pool of clients who are not within your area? Are you adopting telehealth services? These are some of the questions that remote jobs for nurses answer. If your patients are shifting towards online consultations, whether through video calls, live chats, or phone calls, investing in a remote nursing assistant will help you facilitate real-time expert consultations while you improve customer satisfaction and experience.
2. The different types of virtual nursing professionals
Different types of remote nurses serve various needs for healthcare facilities. For example, triage nurses help facilitate the collection of patient information and the recording of key details for easy consultations, remote nurse coaches facilitate patient education, and virtual medical receptionists handle incoming calls, arrange and confirm appointments, and verify insurance documents. Understanding these types of remote nursing jobs and more will guide you to hire the right professional for the needed task and cut down on generalized service that lowers the quality of your output and service.
3. How to access the best remote nursing talent
As an employer in the healthcare industry who is planning on offering remote jobs for nurses, it is essential to understand the various platforms to access the best talent. The remote jobs market is flooded with a lot of professionals, both experienced and inexperienced, and knowing where to find the best talent will not only save your time but also resources. Healthcare providers need to strategically position themselves as the go-to employer for the most qualified, whether through employer branding or partnering with remote staffing organizations that share the same values and ethics.
4. How to advertise remote jobs for nurses
Identifying your need for remote medical workers is one thing, and advertising for the roles is another. If the remote nursing jobs you are hiring for are not well advertised, you might end up getting the wrong candidates for the job, or spending a lot of time shortlisting, conducting interviews, and vetting candidates. Knowing where to advertise, how to craft your job descriptions, and how to list the job description to attract top candidates will help you maneuver the remote jobs scene easily.
5. How to onboard remote nursing assistants
Onboarding is a very crucial step in any recruitment process. For remote nurses, onboarding plays a big role in their success and overall quality of patient care. Healthcare employers should understand how to train their remote employees on how to utilize telehealth platforms, handle electronic health records (EHR) systems, enforce compliance measures, and ensure data privacy for patient safety and patient care procedures. Understanding how to train new nursing employees in these key areas helps ensure streamlined service across all the services they offer and the general success of the role.
6. Standard industry requirements
To succeed in remote jobs for nursing, employers need to understand the standard industry requirements. These requirements may entail education and licensure details such as an active Registered Nurse (RN) license, technology proficiency, such as handling EHR systems, and certifications in telehealth, case management, among many more. These standard requirements help in ensuring quality of care, mitigating compliance risks, and optimizing workforce utilization.
7. HIPAA Compliance guidelines for remote nursing jobs
Remote jobs for nurses, while offering flexibility, still call for strict adherence to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to protect patient data. Understanding these guidelines as an employer in healthcare is essential to set a secure remote working environment, know which communication channels comply with HIPAA guidelines such as Zoom for Healthcare, and enforce policies and procedures that facilitate smooth remote nursing services.
Bonus Tip: How to integrate remote nurses into existing nursing teams
Remote nursing positions are evidently rising among healthcare facilities. Understanding how to integrate your remote employees to existing ones helps employers streamline their goals, ensure cohesion among employees and promote the success of their facilities. Healthcare practitioners need to understand how to foster communication and collaboration, establish clear protocols and guidelines, and build a supportive team environment to blend the new remote nurses and existing traditional nurses.
Common Challenges Healthcare Providers Face When Hiring Remote Nurses
Just like other industries, recruitment, specifically for remote roles, presents its own share of challenges to employers. From handling diverse cultures to a lack of physical connection, hiring remote nurses has proved challenging to most employers. Here are some common challenges employers face when hiring remote nurses and how to overcome them.
1. Assessing technical skills
Remote nurses are required to be highly proficient in tech systems that facilitate their work. While their resumes may outline their experience in using tools such as EHR systems, it can be challenging to demonstrate during an interview. Most often, employers are forced to make their decisions based on the candidate’s resume and later face challenges onboarding when candidates are not able to work with the respective tools.
2. Assessing hands-on skills
In a remote hiring process, it can be difficult to assess hands-on nursing skills and verify credentials effectively. Skills such as clinical assessment skills, virtual physical assessment techniques like guiding patients to perform self-examinations and interpreting visual cues, as well as interpreting data from remote monitoring devices, can be difficult to assess without a demonstration. Implementing strategies such as structured interviews and scenario-based questions can help assess hands-on skill sets for remote nurses.
3. Addressing legal and regulatory complexities
Navigating the complexities of licensing and data privacy regulations can be very difficult to manage with remote nurses. For example, one of the key principles is that a nurse must be licensed in the state where the patient is located at the time of care. However, in telemedicine and telehealth, remote nurses are serving patients in multiple locations, which can sometimes pose compliance risks on healthcare practitioners. Utilizing resources like the Find Your Nurse Practice Acttool and state boards websites to verify a candidate’s licensing validity can assist with staying updated on requirements.
4. Maintaining proper communication channels
As most medical practitioners are used to the traditional operations, maintaining consistent and effective communication with remote nursing assistants is a challenge. Similarly, remote nurses struggle with the ability to convey empathy and professionalism through screens and this greatly affects the ability to build rapport with patients. Proper training during onboarding to enhance the nurses’ virtual communication skills such as clear language, attention to non-verbal cues and active listening is recommended to ensure effective operation for virtual medical assistants.
5. Ensuring data privacy and security
Another big challenge that medical employers struggle to enforce when hiring remote nurses is implementing proper data privacy and security measures. This entails protecting patient information and adhering to GDPR and HIPAA regulations in remote environments, which presents a significant challenge due to the increased device and network exposure, exposing them to potential data breaches. Medical practitioners need to ensure secure telehealth platforms, employee training on data security, and data encryption with regular maintenance to promote data privacy and security.
Tips To Stay Compliant and Hire the Best Remote Nurses
Hiring virtual nurses for telehealth or other remote healthcare roles presents unique challenges and lessons for employers. While clinics and hospitals seek the best candidates, compliance also plays a big role in determining whether a candidate is fit for a respective role. Here are some tips to stay compliant and hire the best remote nursing candidates.
- Prioritize nurse wellness and motivation to present a healthy work environment that attracts the best talent.
- Pay attention to licensing and compliance and conduct background checks to verify licensing and flag any previous cases of noncompliance with telehealth regulations.
- Apply the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method of assessment in behavioral interviews to get an understanding of the candidate’s past experiences.
- Build a professional online brand presence through authentic employer branding, LinkedIn optimization, and engaging in relevant discussions.
- Utilize specialized recruitment partners to avoid making recruitment mistakes that will cost your practice license or patient loyalty in the future.
Get Specialized Recruitment for Remote Nurses Jobs at Remote Raven.
Remote Raven specializes in connecting employers with talented professionals who possess relevant skills and qualifications that will scale your practice to the next level. By understanding the importance of compliance and integrity in virtual nursing jobs, our recruitment experts ensure to vet every candidate to ensure their skills on paper match their actual job experience. Looking to hire remote medical staff? Contact us today to get started with a free consultation session.
