ABSTRACT

Telenursing as direct patient care during virtual nursing student clinicals
• Includes requirements of preconference,  clinical experience, and post-conference
• Evidence-based practice examples in adult, pediatric, and leadership
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020, nursing schools across the world stopped allowing students on campus and clinical settings. Timely recommendation from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were based on the uncertainty of the prevalence, contagion rate, and transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nursing schools were forced online for didactic and clinical learning accompanied by accommodations from the state boards. The COVID-19 pandemic affected nursing students dramatically when the clinical sites and the onsite classrooms closed to physical participation. This necessitated a move to virtual classrooms and virtual clinical experiences. Some nursing schools adopted telenursing to comply with their Board of Registered Nursing direct patient care requirements. Students value the hands-on nursing in a direct care facility and clinical instructors must replicate this in a virtual setting. This discusses telenursing and Teach-Back processes with student active engagement that facilitates learning and meets the direct care requirement. The purpose is to share best practice ideas for clinical instructors to educate when clinical settings are unavailable..