Nurses remain highly regarded as the foundation that permits healthcare organizations to function. However, the institutions that rely on these professionals face a potentially critical talent shortage. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the talent gap is beginning to affect all healthcare institutions across the nation.
Telehealth technology may help medical institutions sidestep this nursing shortage altogether. The technology has arrived at a time when patients suffering from chronic illnesses require augmented consultations and services. This presents an opportunity for nurses with enhanced skills to implement telenursing practices and increase their value as healthcare professionals.
Nurses and other healthcare professionals who are interested in improving patient care through telehealth and telenursing can consider advancing their education with a Master of Science in Nursing degree from AdventHealth University Online.
What Is Telenursing?
Telenursing — or telehealth nursing — uses technology to provide nursing services through computers and mobile devices. As mobile devices become more common and accessible, telehealth is becoming more prevalent as a healthcare option. Instead of healthcare being limited to in-person clinical settings, patients can access their physicians and primary care providers from any location. Telenursing allows patients to connect with their nurses through mobile devices, computers, mobile apps, video technology, and remote patient monitoring.
Nurses use a variety of tools when providing care through telenursing. They can send information to their patients through apps or websites. They can regularly monitor specific patient conditions through remote monitoring. Telehealth physical therapy is another option for patients who are working through the recovery process. Telehealth and telenursing are more prominent than ever as more patients are interested in direct interactions with their healthcare providers.
Telenursing Benefits
Although in-person medical care has a variety of benefits, the benefits of telenursing are substantial for patients, registered nurses, and nurse practitioners.
Benefit One: Remote Service Delivery
Telehealth technology allows nurse practitioners (NPs) to deliver medical services via the internet and mobile devices. NPs deliver services using various tools, such as computers, remote monitoring devices, cellular devices, and delivery companies. Telenursing blends audio, video, and text-based information.
NPs have come to recognize that the quality of telehealth service parallels that of in-person office visits. Telehealth tools greatly increase efficiency for NPs who deliver service to clients in rural communities and sparsely populated areas.
The same technology allows NPs to continuously monitor patients’ health conditions. For this, NPs employ peripheral devices that replace traditional medical devices such as stethoscopes, thermometers, and blood pressure cuffs.
Benefit Two: Financial Savings
Telenursing can reduce costs for both patients and practitioners. A 2017 study from Health Affairs found that, on average, an office visit cost patients $146 while a telehealth visit cost only $79. Savings also include reduced visitation expenses and productivity gains from decreased employee absences. Telemedicine’s overall value is expected to exceed $64.1 billion by 2025, according to Global Market Insights.
Benefit Three: Improved Bed Allocation
By improving follow-up care to high-risk clients — such as chronic illness sufferers and recent surgical patients — healthcare providers have found that telenursing offers a tool that reduces readmissions considerably. Some organizations have monitored patients in pilot telehealth programs. They used questionnaires and provided health-related education every week, following up in person only with those participants who were out of range of the service during a particular period.
Benefit Four: Patient Comfort
Three in four patients already feel comfortable with telemedicine, with more warming up to the idea of telenursing every day. Clients especially like the idea of freely accessing specialists that might typically remain heavily scheduled with other patients. According to a study of Massachusetts General Hospital telehealth patients, published by The American Journal of Managed Care, most patients felt virtual health visits were more convenient than in-person visits, more than 60% felt virtual visits were no different in quality from in-person visits, and more than 80% would recommend virtual visits to family and friends.
NPs use telehealth technology to assess client comfort levels and respond accordingly. The technology allows NPs to restore the personal touch that home physician visits once provided. Care providers also use the technology to deliver services to patients’ offices, to satellite clinics, or to any location that offers convenience.
Benefit Five: Increased Healthcare Employment Opportunities
Insurers look to telehealth cost savings as a way to deliver top-notch service at drastically reduced costs. Consumers seek consultations to obtain information from care providers quickly and avoid the almost $100 billion in expenses generated by failure to understand care plans. Analysts predict that practitioners will experience a sharp increase in the patient sessions they deliver each year over the next five years, eventually delivering around 27 million yearly consultations.
Benefit Six: Accessibility by Patients in Remote Areas
Nearly 100 rural hospitals ceased operations between 2010 and 2019, with several hundred more facilities across the country facing possible closure, according to the National Rural Health Association. These closures are due to population shifts and resource misallocations. As physicians forgo locating to rural areas, and as patient transportation logistics grow increasingly complex, problems with care quality and coverage shortages are escalating.
However, many believe that telenursing services can go a long way in solving this dilemma. With telehealth services, rural hospitals can reduce costs, cover larger areas, and eliminate most of the time it takes to deliver services. Incidentally, this same logic applies to delivering services to patients in developing nations.
Although clients can now receive telemedicine care for as little as $50, not all providers offer telehealth that enables patients to reap the cost savings. With sufficient support and operational integration though, patients everywhere may have the ability to access telenursing services free of charge in the near future.
Learn More About the Benefits of Telenursing
Healthcare markets are expanding. The workforce is growing. That means demand for new leadership in telenursing is rising, too. Through the Master of Science in Nursing degree at AdventHealth University Online, you can learn to steer multifaceted health systems toward a culture of innovation, all in line with your core morals. We believe furthering healthcare starts with advancing dedicated leaders like you.
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Sources:
AJMC, “Patient and Clinician Experiences With Telehealth for Patient Follow-up Care”
American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Nursing Shortage
Business Insider, “Telehealth Industry Defined: The Services, Systems & Trends of a Growing Digital Health Segment”
Debt.org, Emergency Rooms vs. Urgent Care Centers”
eVisit, What Is Telehealth Nursing?
GlobeNewswire, “U.S. Telemedicine Market to Hit $64 billion by 2025: Global Market Insights, Inc.”
Health Affairs, “Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth May Increase Access To Care But Does Not Decrease Spending”
JotForm, “What Is Telenursing?”
National Rural Health Association, “Rural Hospital Closures Rise to Ninety-Eight”
