Mindset changes among health-care professionals and the use of technology: On what nurses encounter and need in telecare

Abstract

Health-care technology is here to stay.We may therefore expect its use to cease to be a novelty and become part of the normal routine. However, telecare (a set of technologies used for care at a distance) is not yet part of the daily routine for nurses. They still have to do a lot of work to accommodate telecare, or they choose not to work with telecare at all. The extra work associated with telecare stems from the fact that telecare is often additional to regular care and involves all kinds of changes to regular work processes. In this chapter, telecare practices are looked at closely in order to find out what happens. By zooming in and looking at nursing telecare practices from different angles, we seek to answer two main questions: what kinds of (small-scale) changes in nursing care are brought about by technology and how can nurses deal with them? The conclusion is that changes brought about by technology can change the work processes, values, and care practices that nurses are used to. Nurses experience how telecare introduces new forms of nursing care, which, being new, require the formation and, when necessary, revision of professional opinions. Research into what the new practices involve will help nurses to form professional opinions and deal with the changes taking place within their profession.