It’s hard to break the mindsets that have taken hold in the traditional field of nursing. Nurses often have the mentality that everyone needs to “pay their dues”, and “start in med-surg.”
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Nursing is a diverse profession with many alternative roles, and we need all types of nurses.
Why Work Remotely as a New Grad Nurse?
No one can tell you that you can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t deserve to get a remote nursing job as a new graduate nurse. However, many jobs will be more difficult to break into or feel successful in without bedside experience, and it may take some additional effort.
There are many reasons why a new grad nurse may want to work remotely.
- Certain circumstances surrounding a disability
- Family situations
- Mental health needs
- Entered the nursing field with career goals outside of bedside nursing in the first place
- Desire to use nursing skillsets in a different way
- Living a nomadic lifestyle
- Being part of a military family with frequent relocations
Challenges of Remote Nursing As A New Grad
Remote nursing jobs still have their difficulties. Although remote nursing is less physically demanding (i.e. you don’t have to physically be somewhere and you are getting fewer steps in during the day) it is still mentally challenging and even mentally exhausting at times.
| Bedside Nursing | Remote Nursing |
| Trouble getting in a bathroom break | Trouble meeting your daily metrics |
| Communication mishaps with medical providers | Communication mishaps with co-workers and bosses due to remote work |
| Answering difficult patient questions and concerns | Answering patient or client questions and concerns on a deadline |
Without clinical experience, you may face a surprising amount of mental stress. Consider how you deal with situations where you have time-sensitive metrics to meet. If you have a limited clinical background, and your questions are too complex to find answers online or in your work protocols, you have to be comfortable asking teammates and leaders for help.
This also requires that when you do get assistance, you take notes and analyze the answers you receive. Working remotely as a new grad nurse takes patience, organization, communication skills, and initiative.
What Types of Remote Nursing Jobs Are There?
If you aren’t familiar with the remote nursing field, here are some common types of remote nursing jobs and the primary skills needed for each. Consider if any of these roles mesh nicely with your current professional experience or skills, and if any of the scenarios seem interesting to you.
Data Abstraction
Skills needed: Familiarity with many types of charting software and the ability to find clinical details in documentation
Scenario:
Today you’ll look at 20 Meditech records of patient discharges and determine how many of them were readmitted with the same problem in less than 30 days. Then, you’ll enter the information into a separate record to become aggregate data for a health system.
Utilization Review and Management
Skills needed: Understanding a wide variety of health conditions and health services needed for those conditions.
Scenario:
You will review an acute inpatient hospital admission for gallstones. You will compare a 40-page medical record of an inpatient stay to standardized criteria like MCG or InterQual. This will help you to determine if the patient’s admission was medically necessary, and how many days should be approved.
Phone Triage
Skills needed: Confidence in clinical decision-making for many common health conditions, ability to follow protocols.
Scenario:
You have a 36-year-old male patient call in with chest pain. He has a history of diabetes and has had on-and-off chest pain for the past 2 weeks and was put on a PPI by his primary care physician at that time. Today, the chest pain is getting worse and it is now accompanied by some dizziness. You need to ask the patient questions to determine if they need a follow-up appointment, need to go to urgent care, or need to call 911 and be seen in the emergency department.
Case Management
Skills needed: Strong interdisciplinary and patient communication skills; the initiative to solve problems.
Scenario:
An 85-year-old female patient with anemia on your patient panel needs an outpatient blood transfusion. You need to help her arrange transportation, get an order for a mobile laboratory to take H&H levels, and coordinate with the transfusion center to get a type and screen and an infusion appointment.
Leverage Your Skills
Even as a new grad nurse, you have so many skills!
Did you…
- Work as a CNA or UAP?
- Work as a unit clerk or secretary?
- Tutor other nursing students?
- Have a natural affinity for one of your clinical rotations?
- Have excellent reading comprehension or writing skills?
- Have skills in data entry?
- Work in an environment that required you to meet metrics and employ critical thinking and organizational skills?
If so, all these skills will help you. But, you need to know how to showcase them on a resume to make your experience attractive to recruiters and hiring managers.
Gateway Jobs For New Grad Nurses
You’ll need to leverage supply and demand. For most remote nursing jobs, the hiring manager is seeking someone with nursing experience, which means your candidacy is in lower demand. For this reason, you need to approach your job search by seeking roles in high supply:
- Jobs that have several job postings and positions open
- Companies with high turnover
- Large companies that are always hiring
- Jobs that don’t require an RN degree, but still have you working in a healthcare capacity
Even if you aren’t interested in working bedside, consider if there’s a different non-traditional way you would enjoy gaining clinical experience:
- Clinic nursing
- Home health
- School nursing
- Mobile infusions
- Entrepreneurship
- Health coaching
- Nurse writing
Drive Your Own Career
The field of nursing is constantly evolving, and there’s no singular career path everyone should take. Likewise, no nurse has ever worked in one single specialty. Never be afraid to change the formula, and build a career you love, no matter how non-traditional. There is no one-size-fits-all career path in nursing.
Interested in learning more about remote nursing life? Check out the Nurse Fern blog.