The COVID-19 pandemic had upended life as we know it.
While many of those changes have been a source of frustration for workers, it has also presented opportunities in the work world – and especially in healthcare – that just a year or two ago, was unfathomable.
Corporations have come to the realization that remote work is here to stay and, in most cases, can even save millions in overhead costs.
Thus, as a nurse, you should look forward to more flexible opportunities to work from anywhere while getting paid the same amount you would if you worked in a physical location.
In this post, we’ll discuss seven virtual nursing jobs you can start looking at right now.
Let’s look at them.
Stages of Being a Nurse
7 virtual nursing jobs you can do from anywhere in 2021 and beyond
Nurse Educator
If you have been a practicing nurse for at least three years and have had opportunities to mentor other new nurses, you can translate that experience into becoming a nurse educator. While some college campuses have opened up for physical classes, in most cases, classes are either completely online or being run as “hybrid” classes, where part of the class is online and a portion of it is in person.
With the right background, you can snag a position as an educator with a university or college and instruct students from anywhere as long as you have a computer and an internet connection.
Primary Care Telehealth Nurse
As a primary health care nurse, you will be performing the same duties you would perform in a clinical setting— except it is all virtual!
You can perform your nursing assessments, collect patient histories, follow up, and provide patient education through a video call or a phone call.
Triage Nurse
Triage nurses work primarily in the emergency room. As a remote triage nurse, you may work closely with healthcare providers at a local emergency department to assess patients and take medical histories/personal information. In this role, you will closely monitor a patient’s condition. Nurses can then communicate with healthcare providers on which cases need immediate attention.
As a triage nurse, you will need to have an acute sense of what needs emergency care. You have to be able to identify key statements that suggest a patient is at risk and needs immediate care, while helping the patient take control of a stressful situation.
Becoming a triage nurse is usually not a role you can slide into if you’re a new graduate.
Remote Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse
It’s estimated that 1 in 5 Americans lives with a mental illness.
With people losing loved ones to COVID or having been through the harrowing experience of being a COVID patient themselves, the need for qualified mental health professionals is higher than ever.
Remote mental health nurses and nurse practitioners are key healthcare professionals who can assess, provide patient care and medication management as well as consult with patients experiencing mental health problems.
Nurse Writer/Editor
Do you love to write? Would you like to get paid to use your nursing expertise to create educational written pieces in health care?
Then you might consider a role as a nurse writer! If grammar, spelling, and sentence structure are a strong suit for you, you could work as an editor as well.
One way to go about becoming a nurse writer or editor is to start as a freelance writer. Health and wellness publications are on the constant lookout for nurses and health professionals to write authoritatively on health topics. You can pitch these publications and start writing this way.
You could also get started as an in-house writer with a company.
Whichever path you take, you can get paid handsomely to be a nurse writer.
I personally have been able to take my experience as a freelance writer into a full-time paid position as a remote science writer with an agency that serves large health and life science companies like PDI (popular for their antibacterial hospital wipes).
From personal experience, I know this is possible!
COVID-19 Results Nurse
COVID-19 Results Nurses are required to have at least a year of emergency room nursing experience.
There are thousands of individuals being tested for COVID-19 each day. COVID-19 Results Nurses follow up on these individuals by answering any questions they have, providing education as well as documenting health records appropriately.
Nursing Informatics
Nursing informatics is not a new nursing job but with the current situation, a lot of nursing informatics positions have moved to remote work.
In order to succeed as a remote informatics nurse, you would need to have worked in an office environment. If you already have that experience, consider moving into this role.
What do you need to do to get into a virtual nursing job?
Because most education and certification programs have moved online, you could gain the necessary information to get on the path to these careers right now.
Another way to explore these opportunities is to chat with nurses who are already in any of these roles. LinkedIn, for instance, makes it easy for you to find nurses in any of these roles. If you work at a large hospital or practice that has any of these positions, you could also talk to the nurses currently working there to get an idea of what you would need to get into a virtual nursing job.
