Patients ready to leave a nursing home often have unhealed chronic wounds, but virtual programs that could assist in follow-up care face multiple barriers, new research shows.
Such barriers range from ongoing policymaking around telehealth; ethical challenges in virtual information and communication technology; social challenges; cost and payment concerns; cultural issues; and insufficient knowledge of virtual care scope of practice.
That’s according to a team of Iranian researchers, who examined existing literature and interviewed wound care clinicians about the problems they’ve experienced in extending care virtually after patient discharge.
“In order to successfully develop a virtual care programme, it is necessary to adopt suitable policies regarding information and communication technology, provide the necessary legal frameworks, assign an adequate budget and consider the ethical, cultural and social issues,” they wrote in NursingOpen in late August. “Identifying barriers to developing a virtual care programme will help manage patients with chronic wounds at home.”
From the October 2023 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
