The delivery of healthcare has, over the years, been revolutionized by technological advancements. Today, nurses must understand how to use electronic devices and the complexities of technologies to provide clinical healthcare, patient education, and health administration, hence the need for telehealth nursing.
Telehealth nursing is becoming a popular alternative to in-person visits. Nurses can conveniently track a patient’s progress without commuting to their home, which has helped to provide continuous care and healthcare access. However, more must be done to ensure patients get quality care and enough education. The human resources department can do a lot to support nurses and ensure the success of telehealth initiatives. This detailed article explores what telehealth nursing is and the multifaceted role of HR in supporting telehealth nurses.
What is telehealth nursing?
The American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing defines telehealth nursing as the nursing process that provides access and care to individual patients or a population via electronic devices like phones or other technologies.
Telehealth is different from telemedicine. The former includes clinical and non-clinical healthcare services like home healthcare, specialists, primary care, and mental health counseling. Telemedicine only focuses on remote clinical service delivery. Clinical healthcare services entail a hospitalist, a nurse practitioner, and a physician and only focus on treatment.
Previously, telehealth nurses would call patients during out-of-office hours to provide care and address any concerns. However, with technology, nurses can now communicate with their patients via email, text messages, video chats, and other applications.
Telehealth nursing is an excellent career to pursue. Here’s what you need to know about how to become a telehealth nurse. You can opt for the accelerated BSN or ABSN from a reputable institution like Elmhurst University, which allows you to complete your degree in 16 months. You must pass the NCLEX-RN exam and apply for state nursing licensure. You’ll need to complete an in-person nursing experience to familiarize yourself with standard nursing practices and learn how to interact with patients. Once done, you can now apply for telehealth jobs. Ensure you outline your work and clinical experience and the evidence of your state licensure.
As a telehealth nurse, you can work in different areas, including hospital units, nursing facilities, call centers, emergency departments, and public health institutions.
Typical roles and responsibilities of telehealth nurses encompass assessing the patient’s medical history, planning treatment processes, monitoring the patient’s responses, and ensuring patient records are accurate and updated. They also educate patients and their families about preventative healthcare and advise them on ways to manage a condition.
How can HR support telehealth nurses?
The HR department has a role in supporting telehealth nurses to educate their patients and families. Here’s more on how these two departments can collaborate to ensure the success of telehealth initiatives.
Recruiting and selecting telehealth nurses
Human resources, as a department, has a role in ensuring that the hospital or facility has staff with proficient skills and education to promote patient education. There’s a need to work with other leaders and stakeholders in the healthcare department to identify and hire qualified telehealth nurses. HR evaluates the candidate’s skills and ability to work independently.
Building sustainable and positive work is critical. Human resources collaborates with nurse leaders to assess the candidate’s communication skills. Telehealth nurses spend most of their time communicating and engaging with their patients. Adapting the conversation to each patient rather than following a script is critical.
They also need to show empathy when communicating with patients. It not only makes the patient comfortable but can also improve the patient’s outcome. Telehealth nurses should also be able to convey complex medical terminology in an easy, understandable manner.
Besides verbal communication, nurses also need to have non-verbal communication skills. For example, the nurse should know how to read the patient’s cues and avoid distracting gestures.
Part of communication also involves having active listening skills. Telehealth nurses must show that they pay attention to the patient and engage them regularly. HR also considers if the potential candidate aligns with the organization’s mission and values. They must ensure that telehealth nurses embrace the institution’s commitment to patient-centered care.
Human resources promote inclusion and diversity in telehealth nursing. A diverse workforce promotes cultural sensitivity and ensures nurses share different perspectives. It is valuable in remote healthcare delivery. By recruiting and selecting skilled telehealth nurses, HR makes it easier for nurses to educate patients and their families about preventative healthcare practices and how to manage different conditions.
Training and equipping telehealth nurses
Training within nursing is vital for retention. It also helps ensure that patients receive high standards of care and safety. HR is responsible for conducting a training needs assessment to determine the nurses’ training needs. Having a competency framework helps the human resources department analyze the skills gap for telehealth nurses. They also review performance appraisals to find areas where nurses require training.
Human resources collaborate with other departments to provide continuous training on patient education techniques to telehealth nurses. They design and develop training programs that meet the needs of the nurses, in this case, engaging patients effectively in virtual environments. They recognize that patient engagement is crucial to positive health outcomes.
Telehealth nurses need to stay updated on privacy and security issues. HR works with compliance departments to provide telehealth nurses with extensive training on data security, patient privacy, and the legal complexities of remote healthcare.
HR chooses the best training methods to fit the nurses’ needs and learning objectives. Another human resource responsibility is to get the right training materials through external telehealth nursing experts or in-house. Human resources looks for the necessary software, hardware, and telemedicine platforms. They also work with IT to provide technical support and assistance to telehealth nurses to ensure they can deliver uninterrupted virtual care.
Training doesn’t stop there. HR goes ahead to ensure the implementation of the training programs. That entails booking trainers, scheduling training sessions, and ensuring nurses have the required materials and there’s nothing to interrupt their training. Training delivery can be through e-learning, the physical classroom, or on-the-job training. Human resources ensure the training complies with regulatory and legal requirements.
Furthermore, they monitor the nurses’ participation in these programs. That ensures they receive the right training to educate patients, families, and specialists.
Finally, HR will evaluate the training program’s effectiveness to determine if the training was successful and met the objectives. That allows HR to determine areas that need improvement in other training programs.
Some ways they assess the effectiveness are by getting feedback from telehealth nurses, conducting surveys, and conducting continuous assessments to determine if there’s been a change.
Technology support
Besides providing troubleshooting and technical support to telehealth nurses, HR has a role in ensuring data security and compliance. They do that by providing cybersecurity training in collaboration with the IT department. Doing that allows nurses to learn how to safeguard patient data during remote consultations. HR also ensures telehealth nurses understand the HIPAA compliance requirements and regulations.
By implementing these telehealth nursing practices, telehealth nurses stay compliant with local and national standards. Additionally, it ensures nurses understand the importance of respecting patients’ rights and consent, which makes educating them easier.
Ensuring telehealth nurses’ well-being and support
Nurses constantly have to deal with stress and burnout. They have to deal with long work hours, make quick decisions, manage multiple patients, and handle patients’ emotional and physical needs. Unfortunately, all that can leave you feeling drained, unable to cope with some tasks, having difficulty concentrating, and being eliminated from work responsibilities.
Telehealth nurses’ well-being is crucial, as it helps them provide enhanced quality care and improves patient outcomes. HR is responsible for promoting a flexible work culture among telehealth nurses by offering flexible schedules. They need to help telehealth nurses balance personal and professional commitments to meet their patients’ needs.
HR also needs to develop initiatives and programs that promote work-life balance and provide advice on stress management for telehealth nurses. These programs are essential as they address remote nurses’ unique challenges and provide access to counseling services to support nurses’ mental health and well-being. Furthermore, HR needs to offer paid time off to nurses to recharge. That allows them to rest and return refreshed, leading to better care provision and productivity.
Telehealth nurses need to collaborate and work with other healthcare professionals. HR has a role in fostering a sense of community among nurses. It can be achieved through virtual team-building initiatives.
Performance management and feedback
Telehealth nurses need to know the institutions’ expectations to help them meet the targets and improve performance. The human resources department collaborates with nursing leaders to develop clear performance expectations and metrics for telehealth nurses. They ensure that these metrics align with the institution’s goals.
Performance management is essential as it clarifies expectations and objectives. That means the nurses know what’s expected of them, making it easier to meet their work demands.
Setting performance expectations involves looking at the challenging areas and offering telehealth nurses feedback. HR’s responsibility is to find these weak areas where the nurses may be falling short when educating patients and their families. This process can involve looking at what is and is not working, choosing the right approach to performance management, and setting realistic and achievable goals.
Additionally, HR needs to monitor and review the nurses’ progress to ensure they can meet their goals. Sometimes, the nurses may need to undergo training or get extra support to ensure they meet their goals. For example, as an HR, you may find that telehealth nurses need to gain certain skills, preventing them from delivering quality education to the best of their ability. In such a case, you can provide them with training. By conducting regular performance appraisals, you also determine potential opportunities for nurses’ career development and promotion.
Evaluating performance is the only way HR can determine which areas are falling short. These evaluations can be done through monthly meetings where nurses can raise concerns and HR can solve their problems.
By providing regular feedback and performance evaluations, HR can help telehealth nurses enhance their patient education skills and improve their overall performance as nurses. Furthermore, regular nurse appraisals and asking for feedback increase retention rates and boost nurses’ motivation.
Resource allocation
HR provides the right resources, such as technology upgrades and educational materials, to telehealth nurses. That allows the nurses to educate patients, families, and specialists effectively.
Employee engagement
Another essential role of HR is facilitating dialogue between nurses and human resources. Communicating with telehealth nurses ensures you’re united around shared values, mission, and goals.
During these sessions, HR must encourage telehealth nurses to share concerns about educating patients and their families. HR can also ask for feedback to determine areas that need improvement. These sessions are great for communicating new decisions and policies to help telehealth nurses achieve their goals promptly.
What HR should know about the future of telehealth nursing
Telehealth nursing will likely become more popular as technology becomes more user-friendly and accessible. Patients will be able to receive more efficient and convenient access to care. Remote monitoring technology is expected to make work easier for nurses, allowing patients to share their health information conveniently, especially when dealing with chronic disease management. With the rise of telehealth nursing, nurses need to expand their knowledge. It can be done through collaboration with HR to ensure access to virtual workshops, training, professional mentorship, and more.
