Quebec hospital uses virtual reality to help with nurse shortage

A hospital in Valleyfield, Que., is using virtual reality to overcome staff shortages and improve access to care, all with the help of nurses dozens of kilometres away.

Nurse Melissa Plourde is wearing a virtual reality headset during one of her rounds at Suroît Hospital in Valleyfield and she is not playing games.

What she’s doing, though, is a real game-changer in health care.

“We’re going to do the evaluation with the nurse over the headset,” she says to patient Roger Dumouchel.

Dumouchel is recovering from a lack of oxygen and water retention in his lungs.

Plourde is an auxiliary nurse, which means she can’t do certain tasks, such as evaluating a patient.

So she connects Dumouchel with someone who can, a nurse nurse nearly 70 kilometres away at the Jewish General Hospital’s virtual ward.

From the command centre, qualified nurses are able to see the patient through the virtual headset Plourde is wearing.

They can even talk to both the nurse and the patient with the help of an iPad.

The latest health and medical news emailed to you every Sunday.

“They’re looking at the vital signs of the patients to be able to monitor their condition at the same time they’re able, through augmented reality glasses, to do a physical evaluation of the patients,” said Erin Cook, who oversees virtual care at the Jewish General Hospital. “On the Suroît side, they have care attendants that are there at the bedside of the patients that need any inpatient care.”

The patient has a monitor that tracks his vital signs 24-7, making the information available to both hospitals.

Those who participate in the program are selected on an opt-in basis and because they need less intensive care.

Officials at Suroît Hospital set up the partnership with the Jewish General a week and a half ago.

They started with three patients.

On Thursday, their new virtual care unit had eight patients. The goal is to scale to 20, says Pamela Arnott, in charge of nursing services at Suroît.

Arnott calls it a success.

“It’s for sure a great innovation,” Arnott said.

Véronique Doré manages staff at the hospital.

“Each crisis brings an opportunity,” Doré said.

She says the program was an opportunity to tackle staff shortages.

The initiative, she says, frees up about seven nurses a day that can be reassigned to intensive care or the emergency room.

“I think it’s the future. Because we are seeing staff shortages,” Doré said.

As for Dumouchel, he says he likes the service and he feels like he’s well taken care of.

“I like this and I would like there to be more of this,” Dumouchel said. “It can save our hospitals.”

The local health authority plans to bring this new reality to other hospitals in the region, such as the Anna Laberge hospital in Châteauguay and the future hospital in Vaudreuil opening in 2026.

Meanwhile, Mélanie Gignac, president of the union representing nurses in the Montérégie-Ouest area, says she welcomes the project but she is keeping an eye out. Auxiliary nurses have certain practice restrictions in the field and Gignac wants to make sure they don’t end up doing tasks they’re not authorized or qualified to perform.

“We are looking at this closely so that it doesn’t derail in the units where auxiliary nurses work,” Gignac said.