The Management of Pediatric Asthma Using Telehealth: An Integrative Review.

Introduction: Asthma is one of the most chronic noncommunicable diseases of childhood, affecting 1 in 12 children in the United States. The use of telemedicine for the management of pediatric asthma has shown improved health outcomes; however, it is important to understand what can impact its acceptance. The purpose of this review was to identify the facilitators and barriers to pediatric asthma management, as viewed by stakeholders. Methods: An electronic literature search was performed using PubMed, Scopus, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature Complete. Articles included in the review contained perceptions of the use of telemedicine for the management of pediatric asthma, as viewed by stakeholders. The socioecological model was used as the theoretical framework to extract data based on its five levels. Results: After reviewing full texts of 143 articles, 118 were excluded, leaving 25 articles included in this review. A majority of included articles focused on mobile health (m-Health) studies for the management of pediatric asthma, with the remaining articles studying synchronous telemedicine or a combination of modalities. Common themes were identified; however, most were focused on the use of m-Health and few studies contained the viewpoints of the caregiver, children, or providers regarding synchronous telemedicine. Discussion: This integrative review identified a number of facilitators and barriers for the management of asthma using telemedicine. However, more qualitative studies are needed to evaluate the perceptions of caregivers, patients, and primary providers regarding synchronous telehealth. It was also recognized that telemedicine may increase instead of reduce health care disparities.

Telehealth Professionalism Education for Advanced Practice Nursing Students.

ABSTRACT: Telehealth professionalism is an often-overlooked element when performing telehealth visits, but it is one that can impact patient and provider satisfaction with this health care delivery modality. This article describes a telehealth professionalism activity that was integrated into the education of advanced practice registered nursing students as one part of their telehealth education. Attainment in knowledge with this activity, in conjunction with positive student feedback, shows promise regarding the impact of the educational intervention and its sustainability.

Telehealth Educational Resources for Graduate Nurse Faculty.

BACKGROUND: The rapid acceleration of virtual health care delivery, telehealth, has underlined the pressing need for graduate nursing students to gain skills and competencies that will ensure effective and efficient delivery of telehealth care in future generations. PROBLEM: There is a need for graduate nursing students to be prepared to use telehealth, but few nursing programs offer this training. Barriers to this implementation may be due to lack of faculty knowledge, telehealth resources, or telehealth opportunities. SOLUTION: Graduate nursing faculty should use resources and the wisdom of early adopters of telehealth to ensure adequate telehealth preparation is integrated into all graduate nursing programs. CONCLUSION: This article describes emerging core competencies for telehealth education and offers guidance, resources, and activities for nurse educators who seek to prepare emerging advanced practice RNs to plan, deliver, and implement effective telehealth practices.

Integration of Telehealth Education into the Health Care Provider Curriculum: A Review.

Introduction: Telehealth is a rapidly expanding health care delivery modality with increasing utility in the health care community. It is imperative that telehealth education is provided during the training of health care providers to ensure the proper usage and application of this health care delivery system. A comprehensive literature review of telehealth education integrated into the curricula of physician, physician assistant, and advanced practiced registered nurse training programs has not been reported to date. Materials and Methods: An electronic literature search was performed using Scopus®, PubMed, and 17 of the 35 databases on the EBSCOHost platform. We included studies where telehealth concepts and components were integrated in the curriculum for primary care students. We extracted information pertinent to understanding the scope and sustainability of the curriculum and tabulated the results. Results: After a full-text screening of 164 articles and critically analyzing 34, eight articles were included in this review. Comparison of these articles showed no consistency in how telehealth was integrated into the various health care curricula. Content delivered usually included basic telehealth information, however, the depth and breadth of content varied significantly based on the interventions. Discussion: For the articles included in this review, there were no formal study designs regarding basic telehealth educational integration or competencies. While authors recommended conducting evaluation and determining the effectiveness of the interventions, they did not provide a clear picture as to how these efforts should be conducted. Conclusions: In addition to developing a standardized telehealth curriculum, national competencies need to be created, which will guide the development of standardized curriculum across health care training programs.

Graduate Nursing Telehealth Education: Assessment of a One-Day Immersion Approach.

The ability to effectively understand and utilize telehealth technologies is an important skill for health care providers. Currently there is limited literature on integrating telehealth education into health care curricula. This article describes a one-day telehealth immersion event for graduate nursing students that combined lectures with hands-on training. Feedback from students was positive, and all participants expressed a need for telehealth education before graduating with an advanced practice nursing degree.

Asthma 101: Teaching children to use metered dose inhalers.

Providers across the spectrum of healthcare must be aware of their patients' inhaler use. This article addresses common errors and the proper use of pressurized metered-dose inhalers in pediatric patients.

Effect of Facilitated Discharge in Pediatric Orthopedic Patients at an Academic Medical Facility.

INTRODUCTION: Because health care reimbursement is being linked to discharge quality and patient satisfaction, this quality improvement initiative reviewed the outcomes of embedding a pediatric nurse practitioner within the resident team at an academic medical facility. METHODS: The project was completed at a pediatric orthopedic unit at a large Southeastern U.S. academic medical facility. During the intervention, the pediatric nurse practitioner student completed daily rounds, communicated with the resident team, assessed readiness for discharge, provided patient education, and ensured that comprehensive discharge materials were completed. RESULTS: Analyses were completed for 219 patients (pre-intervention, n = 116; post-intervention, n = 103). Patient satisfaction was measured for provider communication and discharge. All areas experienced improvement, with provider communication benchmarks obtained. Ambulatory call volume decreased from 97 to 45 calls/100 patients. DISCUSSION: This study shows that embedding a pediatric nurse practitioner into the resident team helped improve patient satisfaction and reduce ambulatory workload by decreasing call volume.