Telenursing. . .

Telenursing refers to the use of telecommunications and information technology for providing nursing services in health care whenever a large physical distance exists between patient and nurse, or between any number of nurses. As a field it is part of telehealth, and has many points of contacts with other medical and non-medical applications, such as telediagnosis, teleconsultation, telemonitoring, etc.

Telenursing is achieving a large rate of growth in many countries, due to several factors: the preoccupation in driving down the costs of health care, an increase in the number of aging and chronically ill population, and the increase in coverage of health care to distant, rural, small or sparsely populated regions. Among its many benefits, telenursing may help solve increasing shortages of nurses; to reduce distances and save travel time, and to keep patients out of hospital. A greater degree of job satisfaction has been registered among telenurses.

Nurses are a central part of the use of technologies in health care. As such, telenursing is not a new role for nurses. There is evidence of existence of the role of telenurses for more than 25 years. In fact, any nurse who has provided guidance, education, or lab results over the telephone has taken part in telenursing. However, telenursing can also include more sophisticated systems than the telephone, such as two-way audio and video systems, Internet, satellite, and other communication systems.        

Telenursing is fraught with legal, ethical and regulatory issues, as it happens with telehealth as a whole. In many countries, interstate and intercountry practice of telenursing is forbidden (the attending nurse must have a license both in her state/country of residence and in the state/country where the patient receiving telecare is located). Legal issues such as accountability and malpractice, etc. are also still largely unsolved and difficult to address. In addition, there are many considerations related to patient confidentiality and safety of clinical data.