As technology advances, the healthcare industry is rapidly changing and developing new ways to provide patient care services. One of the most recent advances is the rise of telehealth and digital health initiatives in healthcare delivery.
Telehealth and digital health initiatives have significantly impacted the traditional role of nurses. This evolution gives them a range of new responsibilities and opportunities to make a positive difference in patient care.
As a result, nurses must now be prepared to work with virtual patients and use technology to diagnose and treat patients remotely. From virtual visits to remote monitoring, telehealth offers nurses new opportunities to provide better patient care while reducing costs.
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What is telehealth?
Telehealth is a growing healthcare technology that enables remote patient care. Through digital tools such as video conferencing and email, telehealth makes it easier for healthcare providers to connect with their patients and offer care without the need to travel.
As technology advances, so does the scope of telehealth services. Telehealth can provide anything from simple medical advice to full-fledged treatments, making it an invaluable tool in healthcare delivery.
Healthcare facilities can also use this technology to facilitate collaboration between medical professionals. Medical teams can communicate quickly and easily with each other, enabling them to make more informed decisions about the best care for their patients.
Telehealth has revolutionized how nurses interact with their patients, allowing them to provide comprehensive care in less time. Through telehealth, nurses can provide round-the-clock care, ensuring that their patients can access the help they need when they need it.
How is it changing the role of nurses?
Telehealth is transforming the healthcare industry, and the role of nurses is no exception. Nurses are finding themselves in new roles, using innovative tools to deliver care and expanding their scope of practice to meet the evolving needs of patients. Here are 11 ways how telehealth is changing the role of nurses:
1. Incorporating digital health technologies into patient care plans
In recent years, the healthcare industry has seen a dramatic increase in the use of digital health technologies. Telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and other digital health solutions are now used to improve patient care and expand access to care.
Nurses are now responsible for incorporating these new digital health technologies into their existing care plans, ensuring that patients receive comprehensive care from all angles. They must be able to educate patients on how to use new telehealth systems and be familiar with how various types of medical equipment work together to form an effective telemedicine system.
To become familiar with how digital platforms work, you can pursue online accelerated nursing programs like the ones offered at Elmhurst University. These programs allow nurses to gain proficiency in technology-assisted care delivery methods such as telehealth, video conferencing, and remote monitoring.
During your coursework, you will have access to a virtual simulation lab to practice using popular digital healthcare software applications. These programs also provide opportunities for real-world clinical training sessions so that nurses can gain hands-on experience.
2. Remote patient assessment
Remote patient assessment is one example of how nurses can now assess and care for patients from afar. This type of assessment involves collecting patient data, diagnosing, and providing appropriate treatment options through video conferencing, telephone calls, online messaging, and more.
Nurses can obtain medical history, conduct physical exams, diagnose conditions, and provide patient education and support without leaving the comfort of their homes or offices. As a result, nurses have become more accessible to patients who cannot come into a clinic or hospital.
In addition, remote patient assessment also enables nurses to collaborate with other healthcare providers more frequently, ensuring that patients receive timely and quality care.
Furthermore, it allows nurses to provide continuous follow-up care for patients needing ongoing monitoring. This helps improve overall patient outcomes by reducing the risk of medical errors, decreasing hospital readmissions, and increasing overall patient satisfaction.
3. Greater focus on patient education
The rise of telehealth and digital health initiatives has resulted in an increased focus on patient education. By using telehealth platforms, nurses can provide patients with more information about their condition and how best to manage it.
Nurses can now use digital health technologies such as video-conferencing and mobile applications to deliver educational content, such as health tips and lifestyle advice. This increases the time nurses can spend educating patients on their health, improving their understanding, and increasing patient engagement.
Additionally, nurses can provide patient resources such as interactive decision support tools or videos. This helps patients better understand their condition and make informed decisions about their care.
With these tools, nurses can be sure that the patient is receiving all the necessary information to make informed choices about their healthcare.
4. Care coordination
Telehealth has improved the ability of nurses to coordinate care for their patients. It enables nurses to collaborate better with other healthcare professionals and access medical records, laboratory tests, imaging results, and additional information quickly and efficiently.
This facilitates more comprehensive and timely communication between providers, enabling them to deliver more coordinated patient care. Telehealth also makes it easier for nurses to track changes in patient conditions and respond promptly.
Nurses can now access patient information more quickly, making it easier to keep track of medications, treatments, and other healthcare services. By having more accurate and up-to-date information, nurses can ensure that all patient care team members are on the same page and provide more coordinated care.
Telehealth also enables nurses to connect patients with other healthcare professionals, such as specialists and pharmacists. With telehealth, nurses can easily refer patients to the right healthcare provider and facilitate communication to ensure the patient gets the best care possible.
5. Remote patient monitoring
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses digital health tools such as sensors, smart devices, and mobile apps to collect vital signs and patient-reported information from patients remotely. RPM allows nurses to monitor patient health in real-time, even when they’re not physically present with the patient.
With remote patient monitoring systems, nurses can access data regarding vital signs and other health information, which they can use to assess the patient’s progress. Nurses can detect subtle changes that may be early signs of a medical problem and alert the appropriate healthcare provider.
This allows them to quickly identify any issues that may require further intervention and ensure that the patient receives appropriate care promptly, helping to prevent minor issues from escalating into more serious ones.
RPM also helps to reduce medical errors by providing nurses with up-to-date health information on their patients, allowing them to make informed decisions about the best course of action for their patient’s care.
6. Increased patient communication
The rise of telehealth has drastically changed how nurses communicate with their patients. With digital health initiatives, nurses can have more frequent and better-quality conversations with their patients through virtual visits and remote patient monitoring.
This has enabled nurses to develop stronger relationships with their patients, provide better patient education, and create personalized care plans.
By communicating with their patients more frequently, nurses can understand each patient’s specific needs and challenges, allowing them to tailor care plans and advice to their individual needs.
Overall, telehealth has enabled nurses to have a more direct line of communication with their patients, with improved patient education, better-quality conversations, and improved patient outcomes.
With digital health initiatives, nurses have a more effective and efficient means of communicating with their patients, providing them with an invaluable tool for quality care.
6. Managing and analyzing patient data
As healthcare continues to move away from traditional methods and towards digital health initiatives, nurses are playing an increasingly important role in managing and analyzing patient data.
By using telehealth platforms, nurses can access and review patient data quickly and easily without traveling to a patient’s home or office. Using patient data, nurses can make more informed decisions about their care and treatment plans.
They can use the data to look for trends in patient health over time and identify potential areas for improvement. For example, nurses can analyze medication adherence, vital signs, and other factors to understand how well a particular treatment works.
Furthermore, with the help of data analytics, nurses can create individualized care plans for each patient based on their health history and medical records. This helps ensure that each patient receives the most appropriate care and treatment options tailored specifically to them.
7. Adapting to new roles
In the past, nurses were primarily responsible for providing direct patient care and in-person clinical assessment. However, with the advent of telehealth, there is an increased demand for nurses to take on different roles.
Nurses must now learn to adapt to new roles, including managing patient data, coordinating care, providing remote monitoring, and providing patient education. They are also needed to ensure the smooth transition of their patients from traditional care to digital health solutions.
That means they need to help educate patients on how to use digital technology and be aware of potential problems. Nurses must also be prepared to answer questions, troubleshoot issues, and teach their patients how to use various digital tools such as telehealth platforms and patient portals.
This requires a certain level of technical knowledge and the ability to learn and adjust to new technologies quickly. With the proper training and resources, nurses can embrace these new roles and become even more critical in the healthcare system.
9. Increased use of technology
Telehealth is revolutionizing the role of nurses by facilitating the increased use of technology. This technology provides an efficient, reliable, and secure way for nurses to communicate with patients, other healthcare professionals, and other resources.
Telehealth enables nurses to observe patients more effectively and accurately through remote monitoring devices, smartphones, and tablets. With remote monitoring, nurses can view patient health data from anywhere, providing real-time access to vital signs, symptom management, and other information.
This allows for quicker diagnosis and response times and better overall care. Telehealth also provides a platform for nurses to develop educational materials for patients to help them better understand their health issues and treatments.
Through the use of virtual classroom technology, nurses can facilitate patient education that is easily accessible and cost-effective. This helps ensure that patients are well-informed and able to make sound decisions about their healthcare.
10. Facilitating research and innovation
Telehealth has been an invaluable tool for researchers and innovators, providing access to patient data, tools for remote diagnosis, and opportunities for collaboration.
The technology is used to conduct clinical trials, giving access to more data from a broader population, including patients in rural areas with limited access to traditional healthcare.
With the ability to collect data from large numbers of patients remotely, researchers can gain valuable insights and develop better treatments. In addition, telehealth technology allows for new ways of monitoring the efficacy of medications and therapies over time and has the potential to revolutionize medical research.
Additionally, healthcare providers can now collaborate to share best practices and ideas more quickly, creating more innovative solutions for their patients. Telehealth is opening up new opportunities for researchers to develop new treatments and technologies, making it a powerful tool for advancing healthcare.
11. Enhanced continuity of care
The use of telehealth has enabled nurses to provide care to patients in a more consistent and ongoing manner. It has allowed nurses to keep up with a patient’s medical history, medications, and treatments even if they do not have access to the physical presence of the patient.
This has enabled nurses to keep track of a patient’s progress and quickly respond to any changes in health conditions without the need for long-distance travel or appointments.
Final thoughts
Telehealth has revolutionized healthcare by making medical care more accessible and efficient. It has changed how nurses interact with patients and their families, allowing them to provide better care and make more informed decisions.
With telehealth technology, nurses can now take on more roles and responsibilities than ever before, such as providing educational resources to their patients and advocating for them. With telehealth technology continuing to develop, nurses can look forward to a future where they can offer more comprehensive and personalized care to their patients.
