Telenursing in the intensive care unit: transforming nursing practice.

In tele-intensive care units, informatics, telecommunication technology, telenursing, and telemedicine are merged to provide expert, evidence-based, and cutting-edge services to critically ill patients. Telenursing is an emerging subspecialty in critical care that is neither well documented in the extant literature nor well understood within the profession. Documentation and quantification of telenursing interventions help to clarify the impact of the telenurse's role on nursing practice, enhancement of patient care, patient safety, and outcomes. Tele-intensive care unit nursing will continue to transform how critical care nursing is practiced by enhancing/leveraging available resources through the use of technology.