Telehealth nursing involves delivering care to patients remotely using telecommunications technology, such as phones and videoconferencing software. With telehealth nursing, nurses can enjoy more convenient, flexible careers in their chosen specialty. Telehealth nursing jobs include case manager, nurse educator, and nurse consultant.
About 80% of U.S. counties have healthcare deserts, affecting about 120 million Americans. Healthcare deserts are areas that lack the necessary healthcare infrastructure, such as hospitals and pharmacies, to provide patients with adequate access to care. While it cannot replace the need for hospital beds, telehealth nursing can help bridge the gap. What is telehealth nursing? It involves providing care to patients remotely using telecommunications technology.
If you’re interested in pursuing a career as a telehealth nurse or another type of nursing professional, you could earn your nursing degree faster at Utica University. Utica’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program and Advanced Standing B.S. in Nursing program can allow you to graduate in as few as 16 months by leveraging your prior non-nursing college education.
Wondering how to pay for nursing school? Get a guide to navigating financial aid here.
Before getting started with the admission process, you should learn how to become a telehealth nurse and explore the different career options available. Also, consider some common questions about telehealth, such as “How much do telehealth nurses make?”
What Is Telehealth Nursing?
Telehealth nursing involves delivering healthcare services remotely via telecommunications technology. This technology could be relatively simple, such as a phone call, or a bit more complex, such as a HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing platform that allows providers to visually see their patients remotely.
This care delivery model is nothing new; it’s been used for decades. In recent years, however, the technology has dramatically evolved and improved, and telehealth appointments have become more widely used.
Telehealth care can take many forms:
- A patient calls the doctor’s office because she’s experiencing side effects from a new medication. The nurse talks to her and prescribes a different medication, digitally transmitting the prescription to her pharmacy.
- An elderly patient is homebound and cannot travel to his appointment. A provider sets up a videoconference appointment instead and assesses that he might have an upper respiratory infection and provides treatment recommendations.
- A patient with diabetes is struggling to control her blood glucose levels. She’s placed on a continuous glucose monitor, and the readings are transmitted digitally to a nurse who can remotely monitor the patient’s health.
- A patient has been prescribed a new medication but is unsure whether to take it with food. He logs into his health insurance patient portal and chats with a nurse from the insurer who provides the correct medication instructions.
In short, telehealth nursing can accomplish quite a lot. One common thread in all these examples is that the remote delivery of healthcare services provides greater convenience and flexibility for providers and patients and greater access to care, particularly for patients with transportation difficulties and those in underserved areas like healthcare deserts.
How Telehealth Is Transforming Nursing Practice
For both patients and providers, telehealth care provides convenience, flexibility, and greater accessibility. For example, providers can potentially see higher patient volumes, given the more efficient healthcare delivery system.
In some cases, telehealth nursing can also improve patient outcomes. With remote patient monitoring technology, nurses can better track patients’ conditions. This facilitates earlier identification of potential problems, allowing nurses to adjust the treatment plan and provide additional patient education as needed.
Telehealth nursing has the potential to:
- Improve communication between nurses and their patients
- Enhance the patient education experience
- Empower patients to take better control of their chronic conditions
- Increase accessibility to care in underserved areas and for patients with transportation limitations
Telehealth care can also help both patients and providers stay safer by limiting exposure to infectious diseases, ranging from COVID to measles and more. It’s impossible to transmit germs remotely via digital technology, making telehealth a vital tool for curbing disease outbreaks.
How to Become a Telehealth Nurse
Learning how to become a telehealth nurse is your first step toward a high-tech nursing career. If you have a completed degree or at least 65 credits, you may be eligible to enroll in Utica’s ABSN or Advanced Standing program, respectively.
After earning a B.S. in Nursing, you can take the NCLEX-RN exam and achieve licensure in your state. Your nursing education at Utica will prepare you to succeed on this licensure exam, which tests nursing knowledge as well as critical thinking and decision-making skills. After passing the NCLEX-RN, you can obtain an RN license and land your first nursing role.
After gaining at least a few years of in-person bedside experience, you could start looking for telehealth nursing jobs.
Different Types of Telehealth Nursing Careers
There are plenty of different careers you might pursue as a telehealth nurse. Many nurses work in hospitals and clinics, providing care to patients both in person and remotely. Others may work remotely from a HIPAA-compliant home office, while others may work at insurance companies.
How much do telehealth nurses make? Salary expectations for telehealth nurses can vary based on factors like geographic location, years of experience, employer, and healthcare specialty. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), however, registered nurses made a median annual salary of $93,600 as of May 2024.
Telehealth RN
A telehealth RN performs the same duties as an in-office RN but with some differences. For example, you can’t physically examine patients or check vital signs remotely. Instead, you must rely on excellent communication skills as you interview patients to explore the health issues they are experiencing.
A telehealth RN may:
- Handle follow-up appointments for post-discharge patients
- Answer questions about medications, medical conditions, and treatment plans
- Assess conditions virtually
- Review and update medical charts
One of the most essential duties of a telehealth nursing professional is to understand the limits of the technology. Not all medical issues can be dealt with virtually. It’s important to emphasize to patients the need to see an in-person provider when necessary.
Telehealth isn’t the only non-bedside nursing role. Explore 10 alternative careers for nurses outside the hospital.
Nurse Consultant
Another telehealth nursing role to consider is a nurse consultant. There are different types of specializations within nurse consultancy work, as follows:
- Clinical nurse consultant: Assesses the healthcare delivery systems within hospitals and clinics to develop and evaluate standards of practice.
- Operations nurse consultant: Consults with senior leaders of health systems regarding operational matters, such as those about finance, human resources, or administration.
- Legal nurse consultant: Serves as a liaison between attorneys and healthcare staff, providing informed opinions on individual patient cases and case management.
Nurse consultants may hold an in-office position, work 100% remotely, or have a hybrid office/remote arrangement.
Nurse Case Manager
In a typical hospital setting, RNs often do not work with patients the entirety of their medical journey. For example, a surgery patient may be cared for by a surgical nurse during the operation; looked after by the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) team after the surgery; and then cared for by an entirely different department before discharge.
If you want to work remotely and support patients throughout their health journey, consider becoming a nurse case manager. Nurse case managers develop, implement, and assess patient care plans, particularly for those dealing with chronic diseases or recovering from surgery or a serious injury.
Nurse case managers serve as both RNs and patient advocates, as well as patient educators, healthcare coordinators, and insurance liaisons.
Begin Your Nursing Journey at Utica University
No matter where your career in nursing takes you, you can start strong at Utica University. With three start dates per year and two program sites in NY, we can accept more students than other nursing programs. Plus, we pair in-person experiential learning with online coursework for greater convenience.
When you contact us, you’ll be assigned a dedicated admission representative who will walk you through each step of the admission process, from eligibility review to application submission. Get started today.
