Implementing a telehealth service: nurses’ perceptions and experiences

Abstract

Background: Telehealth is defined as the remote surveillance of a patient's health to aid early diagnosis and timely intervention. Understanding how the stakeholders perceive telehealth can influence its acceptability and diffusion. Introduction: A primary care trust (PCT) in south London has been providing telehealth services for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart-failure patients for the past 22 months. The aim of this study was to elicit practice nurses’ perceptions of the telehealth service provided by this PCT. Materials and methods: A descriptive qualitative design was chosen to elicit practice nurses’ perceptions. A semi-structured email interview was used to investigate their experiences of the service to date and their views about the future of the service. Results: Seven nurses, working on telehealth for an average of 15 months and providing the service to 34 patients, were interviewed. Overall, the nurses described their experience with telehealth to be positive. Lack of resources, organisational support, patient selection criteria and technical support were identified as barriers to effective implementation of telehealth. Additional team members, more input and training, and expanded patient selection criteria were suggested by the nurses to enhance and ensure the success of telehealth. Discussion and conclusions: The challenges and barriers to the implementation of telehealth identified by the practice nurses need to be addressed by health services to ensure its continuity and success.

Medical and Para-Medical Personnel’ Perspectives on Home Health Care Technology

“…This primary finding is in accordance with some other studies which consider health care professionals' experience when using innovative technology [9][10][11]. Despite the critical role that this perspective may play in the uptake of ambient assisted living technologies, user-based researches still show a gap especially in the involvement of primary care clinicians, geriatricians and medical and para-medical personnel engaged in the care and cure of older adults.…”

“…The matter of costs-benefits seems to cause this failure: technologies in home care setting is still expensive and no active policies help the sustainability of expenditure. The challenge in this specific case is to act for changing political, organizational and operational levels of society and creating prerequisites and conditions favorable to the technology uptake [19], since this is not to be considered as a catalyst for innovation [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“Teleswallowing”: a case study of remote swallowing assessment

“…Problems during implementation result in early poor experiences and impact negatively on staff acceptance (Brewster et al, 2013;Odeh et al, 2014;Taylor et al, 2015). Staff relationships can be affected, due to staff concentrating on fixing problems rather than their patients (Brewster et al, 2013, p. 28).…”

“… poor functionality of the technology (Brewster et al, 2013;Buck, 2009;Odeh et al, 2014;Taylor et al, 2015;Vuononvirta et al, 2011);  telehealth unreadiness: poor implementation processes and unresolved problems impact on staff acceptance (Taylor et al, 2015);  non-awareness and/or non-acceptance by staff of associated benefits (Buck, 2009;Odeh et al, 2014;Taylor et al, 2015;Wade et al, 2010);…”

“…additional, bolt on innovations rather than being core services) (Taylor et al, 2015;Vuononvirta et al, 2011;Wade et al, 2010);  inappropriate selection of patients (Taylor et al, 2015); and  lack of staff acceptance (Brewster et al, 2013;Buck, 2009;Joseph et al, 2011;Odeh et al, 2014;Segar et al, 2013;Taylor et al, 2015;Vuononvirta et al, 2009;Vuononvirta et al, 2011;Wade et al, 2010).…”