Work System Barriers and Strategies Reported by Tele-Intensive Care Unit Nurses A Case Study

Tele-intensive care units (ICUs) are an innovation to handle issues such as personnel shortage and improving care. In tele-ICUs, clinical teams monitor ICU patients remotely and support clinicians in multiple ICUs. The tele-ICU and ICU clinicians function as virtual teams. Little is known how these teams function and what challenges they encounter. The authors examined the challenges from the perspective of nurses in a tele-ICU. They used a case study design and conducted interviews with 10 tele-ICU nurses. The nurses encounter challenges in interacting with the multiple ICUs that they monitor remotely and have developed strategies to cope with these challenges.