By Leslie Doyle | 05/15/2025
An estimated one in five Americans live in rural areas with limited access to healthcare providers. The role of nurses in telehealth has become increasingly essential in expanding access and delivering timely, equitable healthcare services across geographic boundaries.
By using telehealth platforms, nurses can assess, monitor, and support patients remotely. They are better able to reach those patients who might otherwise go without proper healthcare.
What Is Telehealth?
According to the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), telehealth is the “use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support and promote long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, and public health and health administration.”
These telehealth technologies include tools such as:
- Streaming media and video conferencing
- Store-and-forward imaging
- Remote patient monitoring
- Wearable sensors
- Mobile health software, such as diet and nutrition apps
How Nurses Are Involved in Telehealth Visits
Nurses play a central role in supporting telehealth visits for their patients. For instance, nurses in a telehealth practice can use video calls to provide:
- Improved access to healthcare services
- Better symptom management
- Improved healthcare coordination
- Better management of chronic diseases and overall patient health
- Improved patient education
- Increased infection control
Improved Access to Healthcare Services
Nurses who use telehealth technologies are better able to treat patients who cannot come to a doctor’s office, a hospital, or a similar healthcare provider, which is especially useful for underrepresented populations. If a patient can’t come for in-person care due to work, childcare, financial problems, or other issues, they can still connect with nurses and other healthcare professionals through a video call.
Better Symptom Management
Nurses can perform telephone triage or assess patients via secure videoconferencing, which can reduce unnecessary in-person visits as well as hospital admissions. Telehealth nursing can improve patient outcomes and boost the efficiency of a healthcare practice.
Improved Healthcare Coordination
If multiple providers are needed to address complex cases, nurses can ask doctors or surgeons to join a video call and offer more information to patients. In this way, telehealth services support a more integrated, multidisciplinary approach to patient care.
Better Remote Management of Chronic Diseases and Overall Patient Health
Patients with chronic conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease require frequent monitoring, but they may have a limited ability to consistently visit a clinic. When telehealth nursing is coupled with remote patient monitoring systems, nurses can better monitor patients with chronic health problems.
Remote patient monitoring is a growing segment in telehealth services. In-home remote monitoring devices such as digital devices allow for regular tracking of metrics such as a patient's weight, heart rate, blood pressure, or blood sugar. Having consistent insight into vital signs and other medical data helps support more informed patient care.
For example, imagine that a nurse practitioner sees that a patient with a heart condition continues to have elevated blood pressure, despite being prescribed medication to control it. Alerted to this medical data, the nurse practitioner can speak with a doctor about adjusting the dose and encourage the patient to adopt healthy habits to control this type of chronic condition.
Improved Health Education
A recent study in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing (EJCN) highlighted the value of nurse-led interventions, such as hypertension management and education, for improving patient outcomes. Telehealth platforms make education more accessible for many patients and promote patient engagement.
For instance, patients can use a mobile health (mHealth) app along with the support of nurses to have a healthy lifestyle and better manage any health conditions. A recent survey of patients using an mHealth app found it enhanced nursing care and improved patient outcomes for more patients.
Increased Infection Control
As healthcare providers discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping sick patients out of a healthcare facility reduces the spread of infection. For example, some practices routinely connect patients with potential cases of the flu, RSV, or COVID-19 to a registered nurse for assessment prior to having them come into a clinic in person.
Telehealth Nursing Before and After COVID-19
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to adopt telemedicine were stymied for many reasons. These reasons include:
- A lack of training in how to use telemedicine software
- Limited reimbursement by insurers
- Potential liability issues
However, telehealth nursing became a practical necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic and helped patients to receive efficient and effective care. Patient safety was a key driver in the widespread embrace of telehealth nursing services, so many healthcare services choose to embrace telehealth to better serve patients.
Healthcare providers needed virtual visits for swift symptom management while keeping the spread of COVID-19 under control. Congress also took action to remove many regulatory barriers to telemedicine, making it easier for healthcare providers to deliver and get reimbursed for remote care.
In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth services increased by 766% according to the ECJN. By 2023, 49% of emergency room nurses and 34% of nurses in other clinical practices were using telehealth.
The Ongoing Evolution of Telehealth for Nurses
Telehealth nursing will continue to grow and evolve. Nurses already find themselves working with several technology tools, even if those nurses currently work at an acute care facility.
Many smaller, more rural hospitals are using telehealth tools to provide care to patients from the hospital bed. Nurses, whether they are in a small rural hospital or a large medical center, are assisting with telehealth care via remote means.
“Case management, disease management, health promotion, and disease prevention are just a few areas where telehealth nursing is being implemented,” says American Public University (APU) Nursing Department Chair and Associate Professor Tonya Breymier, Ph.D., RN, CNE, COI. “As artificial intelligence is introduced more and more to healthcare and telehealth, the changes will be rapid, and nurses will be asked to adapt quickly.”
The Challenges Nurses Face in Telehealth Nursing
While telehealth offers many advantages, telehealth nursing is no panacea. There are several shortcomings to telehealth for nurses, including:
- The patient may experience technical difficulties in using telehealth tools or may be in an area where internet connections are weak.
- If the patient doesn't have access to a camera on a phone or other device, an effective patient assessment is challenging.
- It can be more difficult to build rapport and gain patients’ trust when nurses aren’t communicating in person with patients.
- The risk of misdiagnosis could be higher.
Best Practices for Telehealth Nurses
Telehealth interactions may be nothing new, but they do require a different framework for engaging patients. Ideally, nurses should follow best practices from organizations such as Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as follow these practices:
- Build patient connections online
- Ensure patient privacy
Building Patient Connections Online
Relationship building is essential in all healthcare interactions. A few tips for connecting with patients during virtual visits include:
- Dressing professionally
- Making eye contact
- Being on time for the appointment
- Starting out with some casual conversation as an icebreaker
- Avoiding distractions
- Asking patients about any concerns they have up front
- Stating your understanding of the call’s agenda
- Providing clear information
- Giving a patient an opportunity to ask questions
Ensuring Patient Privacy
To safeguard patient health information during a televisit, nurses should:
- Use a secure telehealth platform
- Educate patients about steps they can take to keep their information private, such as joining a telehealth call from a private location
- Confirm a patient’s identity when the patient joins the call
- Advise patients to use a private Wi-Fi network and not a public Wi-Fi
The Growth of Telehealth Nursing
As more patients become accustomed to telehealth technology, there’s an increased demand for telehealth nursing. Organizations like Amazon Clinic®, Walmart®, and Optum® are capitalizing on this demand by entering the telehealth market.
Additionally, 74% of hospital leaders foresee virtual nursing care becoming crucial to their inpatient acute care delivery model, according to a recent survey. Hospital administrators use telehealth nursing for various purposes, such as accelerating the discharge of patients and conducting follow-up visits with patients.
Telehealth Hurdles for Nurses
There are still significant barriers that remain to widespread adoption of telehealth technologies. Overcoming these barriers offers the potential to improve the equity of telehealth nursing, particularly for patients in rural communities. For example, roughly 42 million Americans lack reliable internet access in their area.
Licensure portability is another issue. Some regulations enable nurses to practice across state lines, as registered nurses with multistate licenses were able to do during the pandemic, but more work is needed in this area.
Additionally, limited reimbursement policies make it difficult for some healthcare providers to participate in telehealth.
To help drive quality patient care, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for action plans to strengthen digital health interventions. According to WHO, “Digital health should be an integral part of health priorities and benefit people in a way that is ethical, safe, secure, reliable, equitable, and sustainable.”
Where Telehealth Nurses Work
Telehealth nurses work in a wide range of environments, including:
- Ambulatory care nursing
- Hospital setting
- Physicians’ offices
- Rehabilitation centers
- Substance abuse centers
- Telemedicine centers
- Urgent care clinics
- Insurance companies
- Pharmaceutical companies
Although some telehealth nurses work in person in different healthcare settings, many nursing professionals can work from home.
Essential Skills for Telehealth Nurses
For telehealth nursing, nurses need to be comfortable and confident in their assessment skills to evaluate patients virtually. Also, nurses need to be open to dealing with the challenges of working with technology. They must be willing to assist patients with tech issues that inevitably will arise during a telemedicine call and be well versed in communication.
“The skillset for telehealth nurses is very similar to nurses who work in any remote type of position. A telehealth nurse must have empathy and excellent communication skills in addition to active listening with appropriate non-verbal communication,” says Dr. Breymier.
“Good time management and excellent documentation are just as important in the telehealth environment as they are for nurses working on the hospital floor,” she adds.
Today, nurses play a pivotal role in promoting and participating in telehealth programs. Consequently, many nursing education programs immerse nursing students in informatics and technology. Through these courses, they discover how to apply technology in healthcare delivery.
Nursing Degrees at American Public University
For students interested in learning more about telehealth, informatics and technology in healthcare, and other related topics, American Public University (APU) provides multiple degrees:
- An online Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN to BSN)
- An online Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) with Nurse Leader and Nurse Educator concentrations
- An online Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) with Community and Public Health Nursing concentrations
- An online Master of Science in Nursing (RN to MSN) with Nurse Leader and Nurse Educator concentrations
- An online Master of Science in Nursing (RN to MSN) with Community and Public Health Nursing concentrations
Taught by experienced healthcare professionals, courses in these programs typically discuss topics such as professional transitions in nursing, community health, and healthcare systems and health policy. Other courses are designed for nursing professionals seeking the knowledge to pursue opportunities as nurse leaders or nurse educators.
The nursing programs at APU have specialty accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE®). This accreditation ensures that these programs have been carefully assessed by experts to achieve high academic standards.
For more information about these degrees, visit APU’s nursing and health sciences degree program page.
Note: These programs have specific admission requirements and may require an in-person activity or practicum. Also, the BSN is not open for admission to residents of Washington, DC or Washington state. The MSN degrees are not open for admission to residents of Washington state. Please be sure to check your state’s board of nursing licensure requirements prior to enrolling.
Amazon Clinic is a registered trademark of Amazon.com.
Walmart is a registered trademark of Walmart.
Optum is a registered trademark of Optum, Inc.
NCLEX-RN is a registered trademark of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc.
CCNE is a registered trademark of the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.
