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Telenursing involves remote healthcare through telephone, internet or other means of telecommunication. It is used for routine services, reducing unnecessary doctor visits and saving money. Telenursing involves nurses checking in with patients over the internet, assessing conditions and advising on remedies. However, telediagnosis is controversial and rules about diagnoses vary widely.
Telenursing is a form of remote healthcare in which nurses communicate with patients via telephone, the Internet, or other means of telecommunication. Most of the time, nurses make use of remote healthcare to provide routine services to infirm patients and people in remote rural areas. These types of remote consultations are never a substitute for in-person primary care, but they can significantly reduce unnecessary doctor and hospital visits, thereby saving both patients and insurance plans money.
The practice of telenursing has expanded dramatically with the growing ubiquity of the Internet, but it’s by no means a new practice. As long as there has been basic telephone service, there has been remote nursing in one form or another. People who live far from clinics or treatment centers often look for quick ways to connect with specialists without having to travel, especially for minor problems.
Some of the earliest examples of telenursing involved registered nurse call centers, usually employed by hospitals or primary care clinics. Patients can call certain designated hotlines to speak to a nurse about any type of health issue. These types of call centers were never designed for emergency care, but general questions about skin rashes, fevers in children, or other non-urgent concerns were commonly asked.
Phone triage scenarios like this still exist, but in many places they are augmented by new technological capabilities. Live online chat, video conferencing capabilities and real-time information delivery in the form of Internet hyperlinks or emailed documents are possible. Modern telehealth also allows nurses to build one-on-one relationships with specific patients, which is not always possible in a call center.
Most of the time, nurses who work in telehealth only do it part time. They’re usually more permanently in a practice or hospital, so they use the Internet to keep in touch with patients who can’t get into the practice or who live too far away to make regular visits. The patients who most often use regular telenursing are those with chronic conditions or those with long-term ailments that require regular maintenance and preventative care.
Nurses involved in telenursing operations often “check-in” with patients over the Internet during predetermined intervals. They will ask pointed questions about known conditions and look for symptoms and medical warning signs. Telenurses can also often assess conditions of concern such as rashes and skin conditions through video conferencing technology. Severe cases are usually referred to doctors or emergency hospital care. Otherwise, nurses are usually able to remotely advise patients of over-the-counter remedies or nursing tactics.
Telediagnosis is one of the more controversial parts of telenursing. Medical experts widely recognize the benefit of having nursing specialists connected to remote patients through any means available when it comes to general matters. In fact, diagnosing and prescribing treatment for conditions on the internet usually raises more concerns.
In most jurisdictions, nurses and other medical professionals must first have established an in-person relationship with a person before they can make substantive diagnoses or treatment decisions over the Internet. Even then, the rules about how diagnoses can be issued vary widely. In some places, nurses need to be licensed in the patient’s jurisdiction before they can interact even at the level of information. Other times, nurses need to be specially trained in telehealth before they can talk to patients.
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