Telenursing in an Emerging Economy: An Overview

Abstract

“Watson, come here I want you” said Alexander Graham Bell on 20 March 1876 when he inadvertently spilled battery acid on himself, while making the world’s first telephone call. Little did Bell realize that this was also the world’s first telemedical consultation.¹² Telemedicine has come a long way since then. Telemedicine, a method by which patients can be examined, investigated, monitored, and treated, with the patient and the health-care provider physically located in different places, is slowly becoming an integral part of the health-care delivery system. Using available hardware and telemedicine software, and establishing connectivity through ISDN lines, broadband, or VSATs (very small aperture terminals), telehealth is making distance meaningless and geography history!!¹³ Clinical information can be transmitted from peripheral medical devices. These include among others a stethoscope, a pulse rate monitor, a blood pressure monitor, and an ECG monitor. This clinical data could initially be evaluated electronically by a nurse at a remote place, making a “telenurse” the first point of contact in the health-care delivery system. Thus, unnecessary traveling of patients and their escorts to health-care centers could be ­eliminated.¹⁵ It is in emerging ­economies, with limited resources, that telenursing can be predominantly ­beneficial. While ­telemedicine in some form exists in most countries in the global south, telenursing is still in its infancy. It was Victor Hugo who once remarked “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Perhaps the time is now ripe for telenursing.