Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Needs Of Patient’S Families In The Hospital Tele-Intensive Care Unit, Mary L. Jahrsdoerfer

Doctoral Dissertations

Purpose: To explore, identify and describe the perceptions of family members of a patient admitted to a telemedicine intensive care unit (tele-ICU); and to determine if these needs differ from those established by the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI) in the traditional ICU setting. Background: The tele-ICU is a new care modality in which offsite nurses provide consultation to bedside clinical staff at geographically-dispersed ICUs. The last decade demonstrates a growing existence of tele-ICU’s in our healthcare culture. ’Information’, ‘close proximity’, ‘assurance’, ‘support’ and ‘comfort’ have been identified as the top five needs of family members in the traditional …