Medicine, vol. 15, no. 9, 2019, https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/pdf/10.5664/jcsm.7958. Accessed 27 May 2020.

Donelan, Karen; Barreto, Esteban A.; Sossong, Sarah; Michael, Carie; Estrada, Juan J.; Cohen, 

Adam B.; Wozniak, Janet & Schwamm, Lee H. “Patient and Clinician Experiences with Telehealth for Patient Follow-up Care.” Trends from the Field, 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Esteban_Barreto/publication/330544973_Patient_and_Clinician_Experiences_With_Telehealth_for_Patient_Follow-up_Care/links/5c488050458515a4c73b127a/Patient-and-Clinician-Experiences-With-Telehealth-for-Patient-Follow-up-Care.pdf. Accessed 27 May 2020.    

Kruse, Clemens Scott; Krowski, Nicole; Rodriguez, Blanca; Tran, Lan; Vela, Jackeline & 

Brooks, Matthew. “Telehealth and Patient Satisfaction: A Systematic Review and Narrative Analysis”. BMJ Open, vol. 6, no. 8, 2017, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/8/e016242.long. Accessed 27 May 2020.

Lyons, Joseph P.; Watson, Kimberly & Massacci, Angela. “The Evolution of Elderly 

Telehealth and Health Informatics.” InterchOpen, 2019, https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/the-evolution-of-elderly-telehealth-and-health-informatics. Accessed 27 May 2020.

Langarizadeh, M., Moghbeli, F., & Aliabadi, A. (2017). Application of Ethics for Providing Telemedicine Services and Information Technology. Medical archives 71(5), 351–355. https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2017.71.351-355

For nurses, acquired knowledge starts in nursing education programs and continues to grow their foundation of knowledge by engaging in career activities. These can be but not limited to research and theory projects, attending continuing education programs, consulting with seasoned colleagues.  Nurses use clinical databases and clinical practice guidelines throughout the career lifespan. As they interact in the clinical setting, they obtain knowledge for processing.  This causes them to restructure their knowledge base and generate fresh knowledge. They can then share this new knowledge with other colleagues and receive new perceptions. This feedback sharing builds the knowledge foundation.  The nurse repeats the process they attain, practice, generate, and distribute new knowledge as a result of their interactions. This ongoing nursing process is the Foundation of Knowledge Model.  Due to the ever changing and advancements in technology all nurses must continue to acquire knowledge regardless of experience.

Nurses are knowledgemanagers, apprehending and processing collective expertise and allocating it where it can create the largest advantage. Nurses are knowledge workers, working with evidence and generating info and knowledge creation. Nurses are knowledge acquisition determined while providing convenient and efficient means of capturing and storing knowledge. Nurses are users of knowledge giving individuals or groups the benefit of appreciated and sustainable knowledge. Nurses are knowledge engineers who design, develop, implement and maintain information. They are evidence based developers and generators of knowledge in an evolving healthcare industry.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2020).  The evidence base for telehealth: reassurance in the face of rapid expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved from https://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/products/telehealth-expansion/white-paper

King, M. (2019, January 9). Guideline for Telemedicine Policies and Procedures. https://www.magmutual.com/learning/article/guidelines-telemedicine-policies-and-procedures-0/ 

Yahoo!News. (2020, April 20). What to Expect from a Virtual Visit to your Doctor.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F4i2iAKPHFk   

 

Greenlight Medical. (2018). Will telehealth change the future of healthcare. Retrieved from https://www.greenlightmedical.com/telehealth-and-the-future-of-healthcare/

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2018). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.) with Navigate 2 Premier Access. Burlington, MA: JB Learning. ISBN-13: 9781284121285

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWZP6kRfFc0&t=13s

Disclaimer: The video used is from 9 years ago and from Canada. The poster just found the video as the most simple and concise, yet elaborate on interprofessional collaboration in patient care, especially the nurse-patient interaction in providing care through telehealth.

1.       Changing practice roles in nursing 

2.       Increasing informatics competence requirements

3.       Rapidly evolving technology

4.       Regulatory changes and quality standards that include healthcare consumers as partners in healthcare models

5.       Care delivery models and innovation

(Mastrian & McGonigle, 2018)

The evolution of healthcare technology has continuously reconceptualize and enhance the roles of nurses in the healthcare system. Nurses have always been adaptive to all fundamental changes in healthcare, making them integral part of all aspects of healthcare delivery. Nursing informatics has paved way to greater heights in improving use of information to achieve better patient outcomes, develop more efficient systems, and promote quality of care with effective interoperability. Even though healthcare technology has been emerging for quite awhile, nursing informatics is still at its beginning stages. The increased pace of technology in healthcare sets a stage for new challenges by which each challenge may demand more training, education, and competencies for new and current nurses, without compromising best practices in nursing and quality of patient care (Mastrian & McGonigle, 2018).

Current research about applications of telehealth also resulted to findings that can challenge and help future developments in telehealth applications. Primary studies regarding maternal and child health and consultation are readily available but still warrants additional systematic reviews. Other topics and uses that telehealth has been valuable to such as urgent cares’ triage features also suggest need of more evidence. Moreover, future research should incorporate how the use of telehealth in an organization and how payment models are assessed as health informatics grow as fast as technology itself (AHRQ, 2016). 

Information literacy is most pertinent to all consumers of telehealth in this day and age. It is almost inevitable especially during the pandemic, where telecommunications are utilized more than ever. The rapid expansion of telehealth requires more research evidence that will validate its effectiveness in healthcare system, patient care, and other implementation specifics such as technical assistance, staffing, and reimbursement structures. The pandemic, being it a global crisis, sped up the adoption of telehealth, which opened opportunities to learn more about its application and created an opportunity for more evidence to be gathered as we enter a new era of medicine (AHRQ, 2020). 

Telehealth has several positive aspects, such as increasing access and improving outcomes; decrease waiting times and patient absenteeism; an improvement in communication between patients and health professionals; and lower costs (Kruse et al.) Perhaps the aspect of improving communication is noteworthy, and patient rejection should be expected due to the physical distance imposed by this type of care, however Donelan et al. states that telehealth allows shorter and more frequent meetings between the parties, which may explain this trend.

According to Colvin, some improvement should be implemented, mainly in the bureaucratic part involving reimbursement and state licensing restrictions. One should also consider the difficulties among older patients in adapting to these technological solutions (Lyons et al.)

·Patient data will be obtained through wearables such as watches and smart shirts.

·5G will transform telehealth.5G will be important for transmitting large medical images, remote patient monitoring and complex uses of AI, AR, and VR.

·Virtual reality or VR can and will be used to educate patients, used in hospitals as a distraction, and will be used to improve procedural intervention by overlaying imaging data and important information.

·Telehealth will expand it’s reach and scope of services. More physicians are providing telehealth services. A patient recovering from surgery will be able to get an on-camera consultation without the physical and financial cost of travel.

·  Regardless of a patient’s age or condition, familiarity with telehealth will prompt more use.

·The future of telehealth is bright and offers convenience and better medical care for all patients that use it. As the telehealth industry continues to grow, it will begin to offer more services and technology for both doctors and patients. New and evolving technology are ready to impact the delivery of care in 2020 and beyond.

 

 References