Benefits of Virtual Care to Home Cared Patients

      Image the Elderly being cared for from the comfort of their home, without having to go to the hospital or clinic unless it's an emergency or critical appointment? Well, through real time video communication, the elderly patients at home can access medical care and support 24/7. This is what the future looks like as a consequence of Virtual care, otherwise known as Tele-health.

   Through telenursing, a registered nurse is able to provide nursing services through remote telecommunications. While aiding the patient and family with virtual learning, the telenurse provides the best practice to achieve optimal outcomes for the patient. “Telehealth nursing practice is now considered to be a sub-specialty of nursing

  Today’s healthcare industry is changing rapidly. Technology has allowed healthcare professionals to remotely access, monitor and manage patient medical needs. Telenurses are able to case manage patients with chronic illnesses, provide counseling, and coordinate care among healthcare providers. Allowing the telenurse to collect and transmit data for clinicians to interpret so medical interventions maybe applied. “Telehealth services include health promotions, disease prevention, diagnosis, consultation, education, and therapy.” (Hebda & Czar, 2013, p. 505).

   Secondly, through virtual care, patients become more educated. How? Opportunities frequently arise when patients are able to learn more about their illnesses via the web and can have more meaningful discussions with a nurse who can involve patient in the decision making of their health care.

    Empowerment through technology enables people who are recovering from operations or dealing with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes use self-care devices to help with their recovery. Tele-health acts as a bridge between the self-caring patient and the guidance from the practitioner to help make recover a success.

    The fourth benefit involves saving of time and money to both. Patients who are under telenurses save time and money as they don't have to travel to see a nurse. Likewise, the clinic or hospital has more free time to deal with more urgent health care problems.

    When you're telenursing, you can still have empathetic relationships with your patients as you    care for and communicate with them. The only difference is that you're doing it via real time     video rather than in person.