Telehealth and how It Can be used in Nursing Education Sample Paper
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) made healthcare organizations understand the need to integrate telehealth due to the increased need to reduce contact between healthcare providers and patients (Reference). The rapid rate of telehealth integration by health systems also calls for the need to train nurses who can effectively use the technology to deliver health care to patients. Nurse educators need to understand the importance of telehealth and strive to help nursing students understand the same. They should also know the important teaching points to focus on during training to ensure that they instill the right knowledge and skills in the learners (Reference). It is highly imperative that nurse educators understand changes in technological trends in the healthcare industry to be able to teach relevant concepts to nursing students.
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Important Points for Nurse Educators
Nurse educators who are aspiring to teach future nurses about telehealth should receive adequate training to prepare themselves for the role. They must first learn how to use the technology before applying their knowledge to the learners to provide them with the best educational experience (Reference). According to Health Recovery Solutions, the initial step towards teaching students how to use telehealth entails developing a curriculum that encourages learning. Nurse educators must understand that the types of exchanges that telehealth offers are quite different from those that occur during face-to-face interaction (Reference). For example, as opposed to meeting one another in the same physical environment during face-to-face interaction, telehealth utilizes a digital screen, separating the patient from the provider in a virtual platform. Therefore, the nurse educator is charged with the responsibility of designing telehealth training programs in a manner that will teach students how to effectively utilize technology to improve patient engagement and outcomes in the digital environment (Reference). Additionally, registered nurses who want to become nurse educators should ensure that they receive telehealth training during their educational advancement journey.
Related: What Is Telehealth and Telemedicine? See more nursing education topics for research here.
Importance of Telehealth
Telehealth is of great importance in today’s healthcare environment. According to ( Reference), health disparity is a big problem in the United States especially among rural dwellers who are unable to access healthcare services. The problem of reduced health care access of fueled by the shortage of healthcare professionals (Reference). The rapid integration of telehealth by health systems helps to address health disparities by increasing health care access to patients, families, and communities in rural areas. With the existence of telehealth, patients can engage their healthcare providers virtually without having to travel to healthcare facilities. Additionally, multidisciplinary teams can share opinions regarding a patient’s case and agree regarding the best interventions to implement to solve a patient’s problems (Reference). Therefore, it is evident that today’s training programs for nurses must incorporate telehealth training to prepare professionals who can provide timely, efficient and patient-centered care to patients.
The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) supports the need for registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses to receive telehealth training. In 2018, the agency recommended that nursing institutions should integrate telehealth education into their curricula (Reference). The relevant competencies that telehealth training is expected to offer include; an understanding of the benefits of telehealth, how to use telehealth to deliver efficient, safe, and patient-centered care, as well as privacy and security issues surrounding the use of telehealth among other facets of the technology (Reference). Notably, professionalism is a key requirement in ensuring that nurses effectively implement telehealth.
Equipping nurse practitioners with telehealth knowledge and skills empowers them to be creative and be able to apply the technol