Reference no: EM133965532

Question

Health care systems continue to struggle to provide access to cost-effective quality care. The dramatic changes in health care reflected by increasing patients with multiple chronic diseases, health care workforce shortages, mandates to decrease costs, and infusion of technology make it necessary for nurse practitioners to embrace telehealth.1 The use of telehealth technology presents new opportunities for addressing these challenges by increasing patient access to care and decreasing costs, while improving desired care outcomes.

For nurse practitioners to address health care of the future, advanced knowledge and skills in the use and application of telehealth technologies in practice are becoming essential. Preparing nurse practitioners to utilize telehealth technology requires specific and dedicated didactic and experiential telehealth education incorporated within existing curricula. It is important that educational programs focus on the understanding of telehealth and its application as well as skills development. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, this article provides a multimodal framework for preparing nurse practitioners to utilize and champion the use of telehealth within the complex health care environment.