Nursing Informatics - Telehealth

The Telehealth Program uses videoconferencing to increase access to care for patients and to facilitate continuing education for health care professionals. UHN Telehealth provides live videoconferencing to more than 615 Ontario communities, through a partnership with the Ontario Telemedicine Network.

Nursing’s Utilization of Telehealth Technology

Nurses are using Telehealth technology to provide patient-centered care, during consultations with patients and other health professionals. For patients, this often represents a reduction in the expense, travel and wait time required for a new consultation or follow-up visit. Furthermore, videoconferencing enhances UHN nurses opportunity to provide ongoing clinical and educational support to both patients and their local care providers.

Within the diverse areas of nursing practice at UHN, Telehealth enables:

Nurses in the Pre-Admission Program at Toronto Western Site to provide teaching and screening to distant patients at the time of their anesthesia assessment.
Nurse Clinicians, as members of the Home Total Parental Nutrition (TPN) team, to provide nursing assessments, teaching, and ongoing care planning to help TPN patients thrive in their home communities.
Multi Organ Transplant Coordinators and Allied Health Team to develop and maintain long term caring partnerships with patients and community clinicians.
ACNP’s of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the Princess Margaret Site to provide patient-centered symptom management and promote treatment compliance with geographically remote cancer patients.
Advanced Practice Nurse Educators at Princess Margaret Hospital and the DeSouza Institute provide nurses throughout Ontario with access to oncology education.
Advanced Practice Hepatology RN’s have a monthly journal club where they critically review journal articles with community RN’s.
Telehealth technology has also been used to connect patients and families for compassionate reasons.

The Role of the UHN Telehealth Coordinator

UHN Telehealth Coordinators are Registered Nurses and Advanced Practice Nurses, their role is to facilitate the provider-patient relationship.

Before a Telehealth service is implemented, the Telehealth coordinator spends time at the consulting specialist's site of practice. By observing the specialist's personal methods of practice, the Telehealth coordinator is able to better recreate the experience of an in-person consultation during the subsequent Telehealth exam. The Telehealth coordinator also studies workflow patterns, in order to fit the Telehealth consultation seamlessly into the provider's practice.

Telehealth is not just about technology and information. It's about people working together toward a common vision: the timely and appropriate access to essential health care and information, regardless of location (adapted from Health Canada, 2005).