Scenario
You are a nursing case manager working in a 100-bed community hospital in a rural setting. Many patients are elderly with chronic health conditions and have several factors that impair their timeliness of follow-up appointments for chronic care management. The specific difficulties reported by patients include:
· Many of the patients are remote, the hospital struggles to meet the needs of this community health population.
· The hospital experiences a delay in patient care and chronic care management due to a lack of provider access.
· Many patients report difficulty arranging transportation needs for their appointments which further limits their availability.
· Patient complaints have increased with regards to lack of reliable, prompt service for patient chronic care consults and lingering concerns for their overall health.
The Chief Nursing Officer has assigned you to the Clinical Standards and Innovations Committee to examine strategies for best practice related to use of telehealth to support rural settings and expand care to all community populations. As the lead RN on the committee, you have been tasked with leading the telehealth initiative and have one month to research, analyze and propose the best evidence-based strategy. You will present your findings to the Chief Nursing Office and CEO of the facility in a succinct summary leveraging your committee’s recommendation.
Instructions
You have been asked for the summary to include the following components:
· Discuss the defining characteristics of telehealth
· Include your personal definition of telehealth
· How does telehealth impact nursing practice
· Examine how telehealth is currently integrated in healthcare
· Describe the evidence-based practice that supports the use of telehealth in rural and community healthcare settings.
· Provide a detailed description of your recommended evidence-based strategy to implement telehealth
· Provide rationale supporting your strategy
· Include current evidence from the literature