The Guthrie Pulse Center’s unique care model transforms rural care
Rural communities face significant healthcare challenges, including workforce shortages, fragmented coordination across dispersed locations and limited access to specialty care. To overcome these obstacles, Guthrie launched The Guthrie Pulse Center in 2022, a centralized, technology-enabled care model that integrates virtual clinicians, nurses, intensivists and telemetry technicians with bedside teams across the system.
The Guthrie Pulse Center enhances real-time monitoring, supports clinical decision-making and strengthens care coordination, ensuring patients receive timely, high-quality care regardless of location while supporting, not replacing bedside caregivers.
Virtual nurses can assist with administrative tasks like admission and discharge paperwork so bedside nurses can focus on direct patient care. Supplemental clinical care means patients can be treated at their local hospital without having to be transferred to a larger hospital out of the area. With Pulse Center staff having at minimum five years’ experience, they can support new nursing school graduates at the touch of a button.
The initiative has delivered measurable, systemwide impact: millions in annual savings, over 10,000 hours of bedside nurse time returned and an average 135-minute reduction in emergency department-to-inpatient bed placement time. Tele-sitting has contributed to an 87.5% reduction in major-injury falls, while virtual nursing has reduced pressure injuries by 20.3%, shortened length of stay and supported more efficient throughput, with more than 45% of patients discharged within 75 minutes systemwide. The model has also contributed to reductions in hospital-acquired infections.
Building on its success, Guthrie hopes to expand the model and offer Guthrie Pulse Center services to other health systems to strengthen rural healthcare access and support across broader regions.
Through strong collaboration across clinical, operational and technology teams, Guthrie’s model demonstrates how innovative rural care delivery can improve safety, access, workforce sustainability and quality while delivering measurable value for patients and communities.
For more information, contact David Fletcher, Vice President, Guthrie Pulse Center, at davida.fletcher@guthrie.org.
