The Importance Of Telehealth In Nursing

You are a nurse watching a normally, very busy and eventful ICU, but it had been a slow day. Unexpectedly as usual, with a flip of a switch, the mellow mood of the day turned into chaos. An admission had come, the patient was being stabilized and settled and everything appeared to be under control. While the other nurses were in the new admission’s room, you kept a close watch on the other patients. All patients initially appeared to be stable, but you note that one patient’s blood pressure was beginning to drop and his heart rate was increasing. Upon doing a quick check in the patient’s records, you notice that he is post op day four, recovering from major abdominal surgery. You look around his room and at the patient to see how things are

Telehealth is defined as “the use of telecommunications, technologies and electronic information to exchange healthcare information and provide support services such as long distance clinical health care to clients” (Hedba and Czar, 2013, p. 504). This case in particular is that of a tele-ICU nurse who watches over an ICU as a second set of eyes on all of the patients. In regards to any of the diverse fields in telehealth, telenurses are not meant to take the place of a bedside clinician or bedside care, but rather to increase patient safety, improve outcomes of patients and provide better patient care overall (Goran, 2010). Telenurses provide a large number of benefits when used as an adjunct with bedside nursing and overall, reduce healthcare costs as a whole, increase patient comfort, and decrease hospitalization days and number of hospitalizations (Orga-Dimitriu,

Oftentimes with telenursing, there is not face to face interaction, there is no touch or physical comforting and no hands on assessment. Many argue that without the face to face communication, how can it be thorough and effective? How can a nurse assess a patient that she hasn’t ever touched? How can a nurse build a relationship with a patient if he can’t look at his patient in the eyes, can’t put his hand on his patient’s shoulder or hold their hand in trying times? One of the most trusted and compassionate professions does not always meet the ideals of some when there is a computerized device between the patient and the nurse. Some even go as far as to say that “telemedicine dehumanizes the aspect of patient care” (Silverman, 2003, p.