DiversityNursing Blog

The growth of telehealth holds significant promise for the future of the Nursing profession. Patients and healthcare professionals have embraced the potential of the service, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, to improve patient care, patient outcomes, and make healthcare more convenient and cost-effective.

As telehealth services continue to evolve and expand, Nurses can expect to incorporate various telehealth systems into their daily practice. Here are just some of the fantastic benefits of telehealth and how the growth of the service could impact the future of Nursing.

Telehealth Will Become The Standard

As technology becomes more accessible and user-friendly, telehealth will likely become a standard part of the healthcare delivery process for Nurses. Telehealth services have proven to be as effective as in-person care for managing specific chronic diseases and treating behavioral health.

Telehealth provides patients and healthcare professionals with a more convenient and efficient way to access and deliver care. As telehealth services continue to broaden their reach, it can be expected that Nurses will incorporate more and more telehealth services into their daily work.  

Chronic Disease Management with Remote Monitoring Devices

Remote monitoring technology has completely changed how patients and Nurses manage chronic diseases. Chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension require strict medication adherence and healthy lifestyle habits.

Remote monitoring devices such as blood glucose monitors, ECG monitors, and wearable blood pressure cuffs allow patients to easily share their health information with healthcare professionals. Nurses can then work to educate their patients or implement interventions to help patients remain healthy and out of the hospital.

More Convenient and Flexible Healthcare Delivery

One of the most significant benefits of telehealth services is the convenience and flexibility it provides both the patient and healthcare provider. Telehealth allows patients to receive quality Nursing care without traveling to a physical clinic or hospital, which is especially beneficial for patients who may be homebound or live in rural communities and do not have immediate access to care.

Nurses can quickly provide advice, educate patients, relay medication changes, and so much more, all while never actually being in the exact location as the patient.

Increased Mental Health Support

Mental health support through telehealth services has emerged as a valuable and practical approach to providing accessible and convenient mental health services. There is a significant lack of mental health professionals across the country. Telehealth platforms allow mental health providers to reach patients who may not be able to access in-person mental health services.

Telehealth mental health support has many benefits, including increased accessibility, convenience, flexibility, and reduced patient stigma. Telehealth allows Nurses to conduct virtual therapy sessions, provide emotional support, and monitor a patient's mental health and well-being through phone calls, secure text messaging, or video chat, all within the comfort of the patient's home.

Access to Education and Training

Nurses must continue to broaden their knowledge and seek continuing education. With telehealth, information can be quickly and easily accessed from any laptop or smartphone.

Virtual workshops, continuing education courses and training, and professional mentorship are just a few ways telehealth can help Nurses improve their skills and knowledge. Continuing education is essential for Nurses across any specialty. With telehealth, keeping up with new and emerging health information has never been easier.

Telehealth and Our Future

There is a bright future in telehealth for Nurses. As resources and technology evolve, telehealth will empower Nurses to deliver patient-centered care, extend their reach beyond the traditional hospital or clinic setting and contribute to more efficient, accessible, and effective healthcare.

National Midwifery Week is the first week of October, and Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is celebrating by hosting a virtual event from Oct. 5-8, called Empower 2020: Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. 

The event features four free sessions, including two continuing education opportunities, presented by FNU faculty, students, and alumni on the latest practices and topics influencing nurse-midwifery care:

• It’s the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife: Get the 411 on Becoming a Nurse-Midwife, presented by Dr. Jeneen Lomax and Dr. Tonya Nicholson - Oct. 5 at 5 p.m. ET
• Midwifery Pearls of Telehealth, a Free CE Session presented by Dr. Tanya Belcheff, Dr. Cassie Belzer, Dr. Judith Butler, Martha Harvey, Dr. Audrey Perry and Heidi Loomis - Oct. 6 at 5 p.m. ET
• Hot Topics in the Management of Perimenopause & Menopause: A Conventional & Integrative Approach, a Free CE Session presented by Dr. Ruth Ellen Elsasser and Dr. Ana Verzone - Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. ET
• Racial Disparities in Maternity Care: Where Do We Go From Here?, presented by Dr. Heather Clarke and Dr. Susan Stone - Oct. 8 at 5 p.m. ET

It’s the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife: Get the 411 on Becoming a Nurse-Midwife is for midwifery students or anyone who is considering becoming a nurse-midwife. Participants will hear from current midwifery students about their experiences and have the opportunity to ask questions during this live session.

Midwifery Pearls of Telehealth will provide an overview of telehealth from a midwifery perspective with special emphasis on the areas of patient engagement, group care, provider satisfaction and best practices for meeting compliance requirements.

Hot Topics in the Management of Perimenopause & Menopause: A Conventional & Integrative Approach will provide a review of the most common conventional and evidence-based integrative medicine interventions used during perimenopause and menopause.

Maternal and infant mortality affects black and indigenous women at a much higher rate than other races. In Racial Disparities in Maternity Care: Where Do We Go From Here?, FNU Assistant Professor Dr. Heather Clarke and FNU President Dr. Susan Stone will review the issues related to health care disparities and discuss how midwives can engage in meaningful strategies for change.

The World Health Organization (WHO) designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and the Midwife” in honor of the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. The designation brings awareness to the importance of nurses and midwives in the health and care of populations across the globe. According to the WHO, the world needs nine million more nurses and midwives to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.

Southern Cross Insurance Solutions is sponsoring the 2020 virtual event. National Midwifery Week was created by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) to celebrate and recognize midwives and midwife-led care. ACNM and its 7,000+ midwife members, physicians and women’s health organizations observe National Midwifery Week each year. Dr. Cathy Collins-Fulea, FNU course faculty member and DNP graduate, is currently serving as president of the ACNM Board of Directors.

Frontier Nursing University is the birthplace of nurse-midwifery in the United States and has 80 years of experience in delivering graduate nursing and midwifery programs. This is the sixth consecutive year FNU has hosted a virtual event in support of National Midwifery Week.

Register for the Empower 2020: Year of the Nurse and the Midwife virtual event and learn more at Frontier.edu/MidwiferyWeek. 

During this global health crisis, telehealth is an effective solution for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. 

Telehealth allows patients, healthcare providers and health systems to safely communicate. Patients with symptoms, told to stay at home, can communicate with Nurses and Doctors through virtual channels, mobile apps, video conferencing and phone calls to reduce the spread of the virus to mass populations and the medical staff on the frontlines. 

Telemedicine carts are another way hospitals are using technology to help treat patients. The carts allow health staff to roll video cameras and other telemedicine equipment into a patient's room so they can be assessed without Nurses and Doctors physically being at their bedside. 

Dr. Todd Czartoski, Chief Medical Technology Officer at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, said "We had people outside the room talking to the patient, evaluating them with the electronic stethoscope and keeping those communication lines open. The Hospitalists, Infectious Disease Doctor and other Specialists didn't have to gown up and go in and out of the room multiple times a day." 

This technique also minimizes the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gloves and masks.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends using telehealth tools to direct people to the right level of healthcare for their medical needs. They launched a COVID-19 chatbot called the Coronavirus Self-Checker to help screen Americans who are worried about the coronavirus despite not being sick or being at risk. This would free up healthcare resources for those who need them.

Health insurers are giving providers and patients incentives to use telemedicine delivery models. CVS Health said Aetna would waive copays for coronavirus testing, and all telemedicine visits would have a $0 co-pay until June 4, 2020.

Patients can check their provider’s website or check with their health insurer on how to access telehealth services. According to the Wall Street Journal, people can also go directly to sites from Teladoc Health, Amwell, PlushCare, Doctor on Demand and MD Live for virtual visits.

If needed, Doctors can send prescriptions directly to a local pharmacy via telehealth.

According to the New York Times, health systems are racing to adapt and even develop telehealth services that can serve on the front line for patients. “Telehealth is being rediscovered,” said Dr. Peter Antall, the Chief Medical Officer for AmWell, a company based in Boston that is working with health systems across the country. “Everybody recognizes this is an all hands on deck moment,” he said. “We need to scale up wherever we can.”

According to NEJM, Telehealth is defined as the delivery and facilitation of health and health-related services including medical care, provider and patient education, health information services, and self-care via telecommunications and digital communication technologies.

Some types of telemedicine are store-and-forward telemedicine (asynchronous telemedicine), remote patient monitoring, and real-time telemedicine. 

A Rutgers article mentioned around half of the country’s hospitals use some sort of telehealth solution and recent surveys of health care executives discovered 90 percent of respondents had started the process of implementing telehealth programs at their organizations. Since Telehealth is growing rapidly here are some pros and cons to keep in mind. 

Pros

Better Access

Telemedicine improves patient's access to healthcare services. They don't have to miss work, find transportation or travel far to their nearest providers. It allows Nurses and Doctors to expand their reach to patients in distant locations or rural areas. 

Quality Care

The convenience of quick real-time consultations for non-emergency symptoms, frees up office appointments so healthcare professionals can spend more time with extreme case patients. 

Cost Efficiencies 

According to americantelemed.org, reducing or containing the cost of healthcare is one of the most important reasons for funding and adopting telehealth technologies. Telemedicine has been shown to reduce the cost of healthcare and increase efficiency through better management of chronic diseases, shared health professional staffing, reduced travel times, and fewer or shorter hospital stays.

Cons

Technology Barriers

Patients must have access to appropriate technology like a laptop or computer with video conferencing capability and internet or wifi. Some patients may not be tech-savvy and will need assistance with setting up. 

Also there are sometimes glitches. Technical difficulties, such as sound or video not working properly, can disrupt a telehealth visit. 

Privacy

There are some security concerns since the visit is done over the computer.

Regulatory attorney, Emily Wein said, "Your computer, your ipad, your iphone, or whatever interface or kiosk you have at your employer - these are all potential devices that could store or transmit your personal health information."

A telehealth patient's health information is being transmitted for "various modalities," increasing the potential that data might be misused, mistransmitted or accessed inappropriately, she says.

Payment

According to an article by Health Informatics, a big challenge for telehealth is reimbursement and coverage for services compared to those of in-person services. There is no guarantee of payment parity between telemedicine and in-person health care. Even in the 28 states in which payment parity laws have been passed, no apparatus exists to enforce it. This could potentially defeat the point of telemedicine to reduce health care costs and expand access to services , and could also discourage providers from offering telehealth because there is no guarantee of comparable payment.

Are you using telehealth services at your job? What are some advantages or disadvantages you've experienced? Comment below! 

In many cases, patients are now able to access their health care providers through video conferencing, instant messaging, email and other forms of technology. This field, known as telehealth, is growing due to the demand for greater access and convenience in health care, according to Hospitals & Health Networks.

Advances in technology allow nurses to interact with patients remotely. This has led to the term “telenursing” or “telehealth nursing,” which is defined as “the use of telehealth/telemedicine technology to deliver nursing care and conduct nursing practice,” the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) says.

Telenursing is not a specialty area in nursing. Nurses in nearly all practice settings can provide care at a distance. And given the rapid rise of telenursing, current and future nurses can expect to have more career opportunities in this field.

Growth and Benefits

More than half of all U.S. hospitals use some form of telemedicine, according to the ATA. A survey shows that 90 percent of health care executives are developing or implementing a telemedicine program.

Other signs point to the growth of telemedicine and telenursing. State lawmakers are supporting legislation for telemedicine-related reimbursements. These changes have been accepted by private and public insurers. Providers are even extending services across the globe, and the ATA notes that more than 200 academic medical centers in the United States offer video-based consulting in other parts of the world.

Primary benefits associated with telemedicine include the following.

· Cost Savings: A heart failure telemonitoring program led to 11 percent cost savings, with an estimated return on investment of $3.30 in cost savings for every $1 spent on program implementation, according to the American Hospital Association. U.S. employers could save an estimated $6 billion by offering telemedicine, global professional services company Towers Watson says.

· Flexibility: About 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas without easy access to primary care or specialty care. More than 40 percent of hospitals surveyed said that a leading reason for investing in telemedicine tools is filling in gaps due to community remoteness. A survey of patients conducted by Software Advice, a company that compares electronic health records, revealed that 21 percent viewed the top benefit of telemedicine as not having to travel to receive care.

· Quality Care: Patient readmissions in the heart failure telemonitoring program were 44 percent lower over 30 days and 38 percent lower over 90 days, compared to patients not enrolled in the program. A study of 8,000 patient care outcomes using telemedicine services found no difference between the virtual appointment and an in-person office visit. In a Humana Cares remote health monitoring and management program for patients with congestive heart failure, at least 90 percent of patients felt more connected to their nurse, said the virtual care suite was easy to use and said they would recommend the program to their friends.

For patients who have not used a telemedicine service, 75 percent are interested in using one instead of an in-person medical visit, according to the Software Advice survey. For patients who have used telemedicine, 67 percent say that using telemedicine “somewhat” or “significantly increases” their satisfaction with their medical care.

Careers in Telenursing

“Telehealth nursing is practiced in the home, health care clinic, doctor’s office, prisons, hospitals, telehealth nursing call centers and

mobile units,” the ATA says. “Telephone triage, remote monitoring and home care are the fastest growing applications.”

Growth in telehealth has led to several telenursing practice areas:

· TeleICU

· Teletriage

· Teletrauma

· Telestroke

· Telepediatrics

· Telemental health

· Telecardiology

· Telehomecare

· Telerehabilitation

· Forensic telenursing

An example of telehealth transforming health care has been in the ICU. “Although the role of the bedside care-giver can never be replaced or diminished, it can certainly be augmented, enhanced, and facilitated,” Critical Care Nurse says. “The key to the long-term success is the continued consistent collaboration between the bedside team and the tele-ICU nurses, which can transform how critical care nursing is practiced.”

TeleICU has improved outcomes for critically ill patients by reducing ICU mortality, shortening stays in the ICU and in the hospital, increasing compliance with evidence-based best practices, improving outcomes for cardiopulmonary arrest patients and decreasing costs for patient care. ICU nurses use audio and video technology to assess and monitor patients at the patient’s bedside. At the click of a mouse, nurses have access to medical records, diagnostic images and laboratory results, as well as standard monitoring such as electrocardiography and hemodynamic values.

Major responsibilities for the teleICU nurse include making rounds via the camera and assessing all patients. The nurse will assess the patient’s physical appearance by video, check equipment for safety,

verify infusions and verbally interact with the patient, the patient’s family and staff. The nurse also acts as a resource for the bedside nurse, quickly retrieving vital pieces of information and data, and drafting detailed admission notes when a patient arrives in the unit to keep complete information about the patient available.

Future Opportunities

“As the US healthcare environment continues to evolve due to changes in reimbursement, legal issues, and shrinking healthcare resources, the expanding role of telehealth nurses will continue to evolve,” the ATA says. “Leadership and collaboration among international nurses is needed to outline the uses of ehealth/telehealth technologies to provide nursing care in an interdisciplinary manner to patients, regardless of staffing, time, or geographic boundaries.”

Career opportunities in areas such as telenursing will rely on candidates with a strong educational background. Educational standards are already on the rise, as more hospitals across the nation require nurses to hold a BSN degree. Aurora University’s online RN to BSN program equips graduates with the skills and knowledge needed to pursue advanced career opportunities. The program takes place in an online learning environment, allowing students the flexibility and convenience to complete their degree while maintaining their work and personal schedule.