Among the main aims of health care reform and improvement is expanding healthcare access to different populations, which have been subjects to underserving for a long period. These include the poor, the previously uncovered, rural societies, and the minorities, to mention just a few. Great challenges definitely lie ahead, since several individuals start seeking access to the primary healthcare clinicians (Arnaert & Delesie, 2001). Telenursing assures to be a crucial tool to meet such needs. It refers to making use of the telehealth technology in conducting nursing practice and delivering nursing care. Because of the quick telemedicine technology adoption within the healthcare institutions, telenursing emerges as a fresh tool that provokes discussions …show more content…
Telenursing is the application of information and telecommunications technology to offer the nursing or healthcare services to the patients. The most advanced field of telehealth is in household telenursing healthcare. Telenursing devices like computers, telephones and videophones enable nurses to increase successfully the patient numbers seen daily while reducing the entire workload (Arnaert & Delesie, 2001). Nurses are capable of doing this without having to leave the doctor’s office or hospital hence saving a considerable amount of …show more content…
Qualified nurses are usually capable of using their patients’ senses. In that sense, a specific simple scent is always sufficient to help in the detection of bacterial infections, or at times nurses are capable of observing and hearing specific behaviors of their patients, which may probably indicate possible health issues (Jones & Carroll, 2014). Such changes may not be detectable while talking or monitoring the patients via telephone or videophones.
In addition, using telenursing equipment results in the loss of face-to-face interactions with the patients. One of the main aspects that determine the success of the nursing practice is the relationships or connections between patients and nurses (Odnoletkova et al., 2014). Personal interactions enable the nurses to be familiar with and monitor the personalities of their patients while also offering nurses the opportunity of discussing individual problems, which may hinder their patients from sticking to healthcare advice.
Telehealth is the monitoring via remote exchange of physiological data between a patient at home and health care professionals at hospitals or clinics to assist with diagnosis and treatment. As our society ages and health care costs increase, government and private insurance payers are seeking technological interventions. Technological solutions may provide high quality healthcare services at a distance, utilize professional resources more effectively, and enable elderly and ill patients to remain in their own homes. Patients may experience decreased hospitalization and urgent care settings, and out of home care may not be required as the patient is monitored at home. However, no study has been able to prove telehealth benefits conclusively. This change in health care delivery presents new ethical concerns, and new relationship boundaries between health care professionals, patients, and family members. This paper will discuss telehealth benefits in specific patient populations, costs benefits of using telehealth, and concerns of using telehealth.
The purpose of telemedicine is to remove distance as a barrier to health care. While telehealth is an accepted resource to bridge the gap between local and global health care, integrating telehealth into existing health infrastructures presents a challenge for both governments and policy makers (HRSA, 2011). Today there are policy barriers that prevent the expansion of telehealth, including reimbursement issues raised by Medicare and private payers, state licensure, and liability and privacy concerns.
A therapeutic nurse-patient relationship is outlined as a helping relationship grounded on shared respect, trust, the encouragement of having faith and hope in oneself and others, and emotional support (Pullen et al., 2010). In doing so, the nurse can establish complete satisfaction of the patients needs, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual. This relationship produces when the patient and the nurse come together in harmony and peace (Pullen et al., 2010). Efficient verbal and nonverbal communication is an essential aspect of interaction between nurse and patient – in doing this, the patient feels on par with the nurse, as an equal, rather than having no indication of what procedures are taking place (Pullen et al., 2010).
Improving health is in the best interest of everyone, including non-health professionals. Health managers need to be constantly looking for ways to improve access to health care, the quality of the care, and cost containment. Often, the biggest barriers to accessing healthcare are cost and location. Lower income individuals just do not have the resources to have optimal healthcare, or cannot take the time away from employment to deal with health issues. One potential solution to help with these problems could be “telehealth.”
Telemedicine is a new comer to the field of medicine and it is the treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology. Telemedicine is carried out in a variety of ways whether it is by smart phone, wireless tools or other forms of telecommunications. Examples of telemedicine include: 1) transmission of medical images 2) care services at the home of the patient 3) Diagnosis at distance 4) education and training of patients. The diversity of practices in what is known as telemedicine raises many questions and one of those questions, which is extremely important, relate to the safety of the practice and the risks involved.
The nurse can now empathize with the patient and gain an understanding of their experience; enabling the nurse to individualize a care plan for their patient (Appleton, 1993). With trust in the nurse the patient believes the nurse has their best interest at heart and will be open to information they are given. Also the nurse believes in the patient and that they will take the information given and commit to making him or herself better (Appleton, 1993). In order for the patient-nurse relationship to reach this level the nurse must put in the time to get to know the patient and give their best when they are with the patient (Appleton, 1993). This shows the patient that as a nurse you truly care for their
According to the author, nursing practice needs to stay current with technological advances while keeping its identity as a patient focused profession. Nurses use technology to improve care from a patient?s perspective, both in quality of care and cost. At the same time, nurses must learn to balance technological knowledge with personal skills, thus providing optimum clinical care while maintaining a person-focused relationship with the patient.
Theory predicts that interpersonal relationships between nurses and patients will assist in healing. By following the stages and establishing trust with the patient, the nurse will be able to help the patient have a better
The research pinpointed the fact that only 21% of patients felt satisfied and almost half of all patients experienced an unsatisfactory service. This dramatic statistics illustrated that there should have been a system failure when those hospitals were implementing telehealth services. Following with this research, another research studying the safety of telehealth and telemedicine, conducted by Taylor P2 in 2005, used the research result above to synthesize the reasons that people were not satisfied with this type of service; the most significant reason was the high cost and requirement of technology. In previous years, telehealth services were mainly about using telephone to establish the communication between doctors and patients.
Sevean, P., Dampier, S., Spadoni, M., Strickland, S., Pilatzke, S., (2008). Patients and families experiences with video telehelath in rural/remote communities in northern canada. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18. 2573-2579.
Telehealth is the provision of Healthcare services through diverse technological methods from a distance (Hill & Miller, 2012). Clinicians can converse with patients through a myriad of options such as videoconferencing and email.
Telemedicine hold a great promise in health information technology, it not only promises to improve health care delivery but it also aids in serving the most vulnerable of patients.
Emotional touch can only be achieved when trust and understanding is reached during nursing care. The concept where a nurse’s patient becomes more than just a task that needs to be done, but becomes a person that needs to be cared for. Providing presence is another caring action that encompasses emotional touch. Potter and Perry describe that how providing presence includes more than “physical presence, it includes communication and understanding. Nursing presence is the connectedness between the nurse and the patient.” (Potter 2017). When a nurse cares for a patient whether it is administering medication, bathing, or assessing there should be a notion that the time being spent doing these actions is important to the nurse. A sense of rushing could indicate that the task at hand is not important and that nonverbal communication could have an adverse effect on the patient’s mood, understanding, and attitude toward the intervention. The consequences of those adverse effects could include lack of communication between the nurse and patient. The patient may not inform their nurse that they feel pain or need lotion to feel more comfortable because they do not believe their nurse has the time to care. Active listening is the act of listening to hear a patient rather than to respond. It
From state and federal levels, the healthcare industry has come a very long way, experiencing changes along the way. The development of advanced technology that has enhanced the quality of healthcare delivery systems will help all patients to be able to benefit. Doctors are able to access patient records at a faster rate and respond to their patients in a much more timely fashion. E-mail, electronic transfer of records and telemedicine will give all patients and physicians the tools needed to be more efficient, deliver quality care and deliver quality telecommunication at a faster pace than before.
Telehealth nurses use the nursing process to provide care for individual patients or defined patient populations over a telecommunication device” (Stokowski, 2008). Computer technology allows for nurses to facilitate care at a distance and although still in its transitioning phases, telehealth and telenursing will hopefully rectify the problem of the nation’s nursing shortage. The term ‘telenursing’ is not completely new. What was once the more popular ‘advice nurse’ or phone ‘triage nurse’, is now the new and improved telenurse. Telenursing allows for a nurse have real-time 2-way interaction with the patient.