AI is rapidly reshaping how health systems deliver care, manage administrative burden, and support overstretched clinical teams across Virginia. From ambient documentation to automated patient monitoring, AI agents are emerging as powerful allies for bedside nurses and operational leaders alike. 

We consult with Mary Morin, RN, the Chief Nursing Officer at Andor Health, an AI-first company reimagining clinical care through the use of AI agents. With more than 30 years of clinical and executive leadership experience, Morin shares insights to how AI can safely enhance nursing practice and patient care throughout Virginia.

Exploring new ways to integrate technology into patient care? VHHA Solutions helps hospitals adopt tools that reduce administrative strain, support clinical teams, and improve operational efficiency. Reach out to discover how our partner network can help your organization advance.

Key Takeaways

• AI agents enhance nursing practice by automating administrative tasks, improving documentation accuracy, and strengthening patient monitoring.
  
• Virtual nurses and AI agents serve different roles and work together to expand hospital capacity and improve workflow efficiency.
  
• Successful AI adoption requires strong cybersecurity safeguards, thoughtful change management, and clarity about the challenges leaders want to solve.
  
• AI does not replace nurses. Instead, it supports nurses by reducing cognitive and administrative strain, helping to prevent compassion fatigue and promoting long-term workforce retention.

What Are AI Agents in Healthcare?

AI agents in healthcare perform structured, repeatable tasks that do not require human judgment and/or critical thinking. “An AI agent is not a person,” Morin explains. “It manages tasks by curating information from various sources.” Some of those sources include EMRs, patient conversations, and biometric devices.  

Through a single AI infrastructure, ThinkAndor® provides multimodal agentic AI capabilities specialized for patient observation, workflow orchestration, and ambient documentation which are designed to optimize care delivery while staying true to Andor Health’s core principle of “keeping the human in the loop.” AI agents support and enhance the nursing and clinical work to improve patient and staff outcomes.

There are several different types of AI agents that support hospitals and health systems, including:

• Digital Front Door Agents to guide patients through intake, triage, and navigation tasks by pulling relevant information and initiating appropriate workflows.
  
• Virtual Hospital AI Agents to support inpatient units with task orchestration, routing requests, and escalating issues to the right clinical role.
  
• Patient Monitoring AI Agents that use sensors and computer vision to detect falls, monitor safety behaviors, and alert teams to changes in patient status.
  
• Care Team Collaboration AI Agents that prioritize messages, route requests, surface clinical information, and coordinate tasks across teams.
  
• Transition in Care AI Agents to identify discharge readiness, surface follow-up needs, and streamline handoffs between departments or care settings.

The Healthcare AI Empowered Virtual Nurse

In healthcare, AI agents and virtual nurses play distinct roles. AI agents are autonomous software systems, whereas virtual nurses are real, licensed professionals working remotely to handle complex situations that require human insight, nuance, and clinical expertise. 

Healthcare systems benefit from both AI agents and virtual nurses to expand their capabilities.

AI is meant to support, not replace, the work of virtual nursing teams. AI agents remove administrative burden and improve precision. Agetic AI can help the nursing teams by curating recommendations, clinical insights, standardized administrative workflows, and other critical protocols that will allow virtual nurses to make clinical judgments on more complex situations much faster and provide clear oversight and direction to bedside nurses.

“Our core belief is that AI does not replace people,” reflects Morin. “You still need people at the sharp point of care, whether it’s in the acute care setting, ambulatory setting, postacute setting, or a health plan. You still need to have clinical people and even administrative people who are able to take information and make those critical decisions or those critical judgment calls.” 

What to Consider When Implementing AI Agents in Clinical Settings in Virginia

When integrating AI agents into healthcare settings, Morin recommended that leaders evaluate several foundational considerations to ensure safe, effective, and sustainable adoption:

• Identify the core problem in your hospital or healthcare setting you are trying to solve, such as addressing nurse shortages, improving patient safety, reducing compassion fatigue, or enhancing the overall patient experience.
  
• Prioritize cybersecurity, regulatory, and legal safeguards by involving legal, privacy, and cybersecurity teams to protect patient data and maintain compliance.
  
• Leverage AI technologies to enhance clinical workflows and outcomes while keeping the clinicians in the loop for clinical decision making requiring critical thinking and judgment.
  
• Invest in training, time, technology, and workflow integrations to ensure staff adoption, support change management, and achieve long-term operational benefits.  

5 Agentic AI Use Cases in Healthcare to Help Nurses in Virginia

Virginia health systems are leveraging AI to lighten workloads and enhance care. Here are some key ways AI agents are making an impact.

1. Streamline Admissions and Discharge Workflows with AI Agents

One major challenge in healthcare is rising operational costs. AI agents can decrease those costs through streamlined admissions and discharge workflows. These AI agents are designed to automate tasks like flagging inconsistent answers, pre-populating forms from prior patient history, and detecting when rooms are cleaned and ready for turnover.

VHHA partner Premier supports this work through technology that strengthens patient flow and reduces administrative load. Premier’s advanced analytics and AI capabilities help hospitals uncover inefficiencies so workflows can be adjusted and automated. AI agents in healthcare can be specifically designed with optimized admission and discharge processes, saving time and operational costs.

2. Strengthen Patient Monitoring and Family Visibility

Another way AI agents are being used in healthcare is for improved patient monitoring and visibility for families. AI-powered observation tools provide continuous oversight and identify issues before they escalate. High-level monitoring to anticipate risks early gives peace of mind to family members while improving the quality of patient care.

ThinkAndor®’s computer vision and sensor-based monitoring have delivered measurable improvements, including:

• Detecting fall risks and changes in condition in real time
  
• Identifying safety behaviors that require attention
  
• Reducing in-person monitoring costs by 70%
  
• Lowering readmissions for chronic conditions by 58%

In another example, VHHA partner Backpack Healthcare leverages AI for youth patient monitoring with their self-care app, which collects daily data about the user’s mood, sleep patterns, and mental health condition. If the data reveals that the user needs more personalized or urgent treatment, the parents will be notified and Backpack Healthcare will help to schedule a live, virtual therapist. 

Both Andor Health’s and Backpack Healthcare’s solutions reinforce how AI-driven monitoring can extend meaningful care beyond the bedside and provide benefits to patients and their families alike.

3. Improve Real-Time Documentation Accuracy with AI Agents

High-quality, detailed notes are essential for communicating about patient care, but they’re just another one of a million tasks nurses need to complete during their hectic shifts. AI is taking this task off nurses’ plates through ambient documentation technology that captures clinical conversations as they occur. Instead of completing an assessment and documenting it afterward, nurses can speak naturally while the AI produces a note for review before it is added discretely to the EMR. This helps prevent documentation gaps and errors that occur when notes rely solely on memory.

Ambient transcription solutions like ThinkAndor® support real-time documentation accuracy by using advanced conversational AI to recognize clinical language, distinguish the healthcare worker’s voice from the patient’s, and generate accurate, structured documentation. A bonus to these AI solutions is that they are continuously learning; as they are generating documentation, the system is learning to further ease cognitive loads, accelerate charting, and create more reliable patient records.  Using ambient documentation decreases the time to document by 69%, giving time back to clinical staff to focus on patient care.

4. Enforce Safety Protocols Through Observational Checklists

Safety is of the utmost importance in hospitals. There are dozens of microtasks that are completed to ensure patient and staff safety, typically requiring manual oversight. Observational AI agents can take over these tasks by prompting bedside nurses and other clinicians with protocol reminders, checklists, and alerts of safety concerns.

Common safety tasks include:

• Monitoring hand hygiene compliance
  
• Confirming appropriate PPE use for isolation patients
  
• Detect patient discharge and room cleaning status
  
• Monitoring and intervening when patients do not change position in bed or chair to prevent hospital acquired pressure injuries

This technology also supports efficient patient flow and a positive patient experience. By detecting when a room has been cleaned and signaling that it is ready for the next admission, observational AI removes administrative demand from bedside nurses. Virtual nursing teams managing admissions and discharges remotely also benefit from a smoother patient flow since they can act on real-time room status updates without delays.

5. Automate Cognitive and Administrative Load with AI Agents to Reduce Nurse Compassion Fatigue

Nurses carry an intense cognitive and administrative load throughout every shift, which is why burnout remains a widespread challenge in the healthcare industry. AI agents help reduce this strain by automating routine tasks, supporting form fills, triaging requests, and ensuring that issues are routed to the appropriate clinical role. 

Removing administrative barriers through healthcare AI agents allows bedside RNs and other clinical professionals to focus on primary tasks without excessive distractions. Less multitasking and clearer responsibilities makes for a safer environment for nurses and patients alike.

Morin shares, “Agentic AI in healthcare enhances nurses’ abilities to take good care of their patients and improve the patient outcomes, as well as improve the work environment by bringing back purpose and meaningfulness to those at the bedside.”

A reconnection to purpose is key to higher job satisfaction among nurses and can lead to long-term workforce retention. Without purpose and meaning being muddled by repetitive tasks, nurses can redirect their energy toward direct patient care and clinical decision-making that aligns closely with their mission to take care of their patients. 

Work with VHHA Solutions

AI agents are helping Virginia’s hospitals and healthcare systems reduce administrative burden, strengthen patient safety, and give nurses more time for meaningful, high-impact work. As Morin emphasizes, AI should be designed to help humanize the delivery of clinical care rather than replacing human expertise at the heart of healthcare. With the right partners, health systems can adopt tools that improve efficiency, outcomes, and staff well-being.

Bring innovative technology into your hospital by connecting with VHHA Solutions. Explore our trusted partners offering proven tools that help healthcare systems modernize workflows, support clinical teams, and elevate patient care.