Provision of high-quality aged care services has been shown to vary across the aged care sector. The Commonwealth Government has committed to improving quality of care outcomes within aged care via a broad program of reform. The Virtual Nursing in Aged Care project is a national project funded by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing designed to enhance quality of care outcomes for residents of residential aged care homes via 24/7 specialist clinical support for onsite workforce. La Trobe University is conducting a mixed-methods, three-year developmental evaluation of the Virtual Nursing in Aged Care project, focusing on implementation, effectiveness and efficiency. This presentation showcases preliminary evaluation findings from the first 5 homes after six months of VN project service delivery. Staff experiences will be discussed focusing on clinical decision making for onsite staff, and how the opportunity to engage in real time with a clinical peer while using virtual care mechanisms has impacted their confidence and sense of wellbeing. Positive impacts on recognised quality outcome indicators like serious incident reporting, and hospitalisations will be also discussed. Some differences across and between the participating homes, like geographic locations, will provide an interesting contextual discussion. Implications from these project findings lie in the powerful relationship between provision of dedicated, specialist clinical support to a predominantly isolated workforce and how that support translates into enhanced care outcomes for residents of residential aged care homes. Findings from this project have implications for service design and policy development in aged care.