Study: Telehealth can be disruptive, threatening for nurses

Implementing telehealth can be both threatening and disruptive to nurses and technical staff, thus managers and service providers should develop strategies to minimize these reactions.

These insights were gleaned from a longitudinal qualitative study—published in the BMC Health Services Research—which followed the implementation of a telehealth service at a United Kingdom-based provider. The study involved extensive focus group discussions with congestive heart failure nurses, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease nurses and community support workers on their perspectives on the telehealth adoption.

Researchers determined three root causes of the feelings of being threatened and disrupted: change in clinical routines and increased workload; change in interactions with patients and fundamentals of face-to-face nursing work; and change in skills required with marginalization of clinical expertise.

To counter these reactions, providers should employ simple yet effective measures such as: providing timely, appropriate and context specific training; provision of adequate technical support; and procedures that allow a balance between the use of telehealth and personal visit by nurses delivering care to their patients.

“The study highlights that introducing and implementing a telehealth service that is to be integrated into mainstream bring many changes to the clinical routines of the user, interaction with patients and expertise of the user, all of which can be experienced as threatening. If adequate steps are not taken and the concerns of users are not addressed in a timely manner, results can be detrimental to service integration,” wrote the authors.