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Custom Telehealth Software for Nursing Care

Architecture, Key Features, Development Steps

Relying on 18 years of experience in healthcare IT, ScienceSoft designs and builds convenient telenursing products and helps healthcare providers implement reliable custom telenursing solutions.

Online Nursing Care Delivery - ScienceSoft
Online Nursing Care Delivery - ScienceSoft

Telenursing Essence

Using telehealth, nursing staff provides remote care, health state monitoring, and consultations on symptoms, disease management, rehabilitation, etc. Telenursing helps mitigate staffing issues and reduce re-admissions by 31% while ensuring continuous patient monitoring and care management.

Custom nursing telehealth software allows nurses to create and modify care plans according to each patient's unique needs. It also enables communication with interdisciplinary teams and ensures that the existing nursing processes and documentation requirements are aligned. Additionally, the software provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities to assess patient outcomes, monitor KPIs, and identify areas for quality improvement.

Telenursing Market Overview

In 2023, the telemedicine market is estimated at $87.21 billion. By 2032, it is expected to amount to $763.67 billion, growing at a CAGR of 28.3%. The market growth is associated with the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, support of telehealth initiatives by authorities, and the need to save costs. Telehealth technology for nursing practice has become one of the key telemedicine directions due to the increased number of patients, nursing staff shortage, and work overload.

How Telenursing Works

Architecture

A sample architecture for a telenursing application - ScienceSoft

At the core of the telenursing platform, there is a cloud server with a data storage and processing module and a video streaming server. The former collects and handles for patient-related data (e.g., telenursing calls history, contact information, health records), telenursing staff data, images shared by patients and nurses in the app (e.g., photos of wounds), video calls recordings, etc. The latter enables real-time video communication between patients and nurses.

Other key modules of a telenursing solution include:

App for patients

including such features as nurse video visit scheduling, vitals entry, chat with a nurse, self-help guides, etc.

Admin web panel

to view a telenursing staff list, grant app access to patients and nurses, etc. (used by nursing supervisors, nurse practitioners, administrators of home care organizations).

App for nurses

featuring a patient list, patient health history, patient vitals tracker, nurse video visit request scheduling and approval, instant messaging with patients, etc.

A telenursing application can be integrated with EHR/EMR, CRM, hospital information system (HIS), and smart devices for patients, including wearables. Through automation of data collection from these devices, the app empowers a nurse to effortlessly track patients' vitals (e.g., blood glucose level, blood pressure) and continuously monitor their health state in real time.

Use Cases

Preoperative and postoperative patient care

Nurses track patients’ vitals using connected devices and guide patients through surgery preparation via video calls. After surgery, nurses assess patient recovery during e-visits and identify complications using photos and wearable device data.

Telenursing helps manage symptoms and track patients’ vitals, enhances care plan adherence, and enables nurses to support patients in symptom alleviation remotely.

A telehealth app provides nurses with real-time information about the health state of elderly patients or patients with special needs, and helps coordinate and adjust home care.

Pregnancy monitoring and newborn care

Via telehealth, nurses help patients navigate pregnancy, conduct childbirth preparation courses, and monitor parents’ and babies’ vitals.

Video calls with a psychiatric nurse help monitor medication adherence, timely identify and alleviate symptoms of mental health disorders, and promote healthy coping mechanisms among patients.

Do You Need a Custom Telenursing App?

To determine whether you should consider implementing a custom-made telenursing solution, answer a few simple questions from ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT team.

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Please answer at least one question to help us better understand your business objectives.

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A ready-made app will be more cost-effective

An out-of-the-box solution will likely suit your organization’s needs just fine. If you need expert guidance to choose and implement the best-fitting telenursing app, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

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A custom telenursing app is the best fit!

Based on the needs you shared, it looks like a custom telenursing app is the best option for you. ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT experts are ready to help you define the software requirements, design a robust architecture, and fully develop your solution.

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Essential Features

Live video conferencing

Patients join online appointments with a nurse to discuss their health state and test results, get instructions on care and pre-surgical preparation, etc. In case of emergency, patients can also call an on-duty nurse.

Remote patient monitoring

Nurses track and assess patients’ vitals (collected by devices like biosensors, glucose meters, etc., or entered manually) and escalate the potential issues to the doctors.

Chat consultations

A patient can message a nurse to ask for medical advice (e.g., how to care for an injury) or to be referred to the right specialist.

Image and video sharing

By exchanging photos and videos with patients, nursing staff checks the healing process, monitors medication side effects, or shares instructions (bandage changing, exercise).

Nurse peer-to-peer support

Via a telenursing app, a nurse can contact an experienced colleague to discuss the unusual symptoms or complications.

Self-help guides for patients

An app can provide access to educational videos, first aid or exercise tutorials, and condition-related lifestyle advice for patients.

See How It Works in Real Life

Check Out Our Telehealth App Demo

Explore opportunities that a telehealth app provides to foster continuous and impactful communication between patients and healthcare professionals.

Explore a Telehealth App with Remote Patient Monitoring

In the app demo, we show how the automated collection of health parameters, vitals analysis, and identification of symptom patterns contribute to advanced patient care.

Talk to Experts to Get the Right Telenursing Solution 

With experienced healthcare software engineers and IT consultants on board, ScienceSoft is ready to you develop a custom telenursing solution, launch your telehealth product for nursing care, or implement a market-available app.

Key Steps to Develop Telenursing Software

In the healthcare IT industry for the past 18 years, ScienceSoft knows how to build efficient telenursing software.

1

Nursing needs assessment and feature set introduction

2

Architecture and tech stack selection

3

Project planning

4

Telenursing software development and testing

5

Integration

6

Ongoing support and evolution

Telehealth Nursing Challenges and Solutions

Challenge #1

Using a telenursing app can be challenging for some groups of patients, e.g., elderly patients. Treatment adherence may be hindered by a lack of positive reinforcement.

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Solution

While planning the application, focus on clear and user-friendly UI that won’t require additional user training. To verify that the interface is intuitive and easy-to-understand, allocate additional resources for usability testing. To motivate patients to use the app, ScienceSoft suggests implementing gamification techniques and in-app notifications to remind them of scheduled e-visits or regular vitals entry.

HIDE

Challenge #2

Potential HIPAA breaches in a telenursing app may entail reputational and financial risks for healthcare organizations.

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Solution

HIPAA-compliant clouds (e.g., AWS, Azure) provide a secure environment for building a telenursing application, including EHR data storage in an encrypted database, storage of real-time patient monitoring data in the encrypted form, identity and access management, network and application firewalls, and more.

HIDE

Real-Life Examples of Telenursing

Saint Luke's Health System, Missouri, introduced a program aimed at having virtual nurses supporting bedside nurses. The telehealth nurses took over non-hands-on care, education, documentation, admission, discharge, answering questions, reviewing the care plan, and more. As a result, patient and nurse satisfaction increased, and patients are now discharged within two hours of the discharge order (20% faster than in other hospital units).

Cleveland Clinic, a health system with several US and international locations, launched a telemedicine service that allows patients to get second opinions on their care and treatment plan. The program is run by nurse care managers who record additional patient health information and provide updates on the status of patients’ cases. As a result, 72% of secondary opinions identified a potential diagnosis change or treatment plan modifications.

BrightView Health, a behavioral health system with outpatient centers in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and Delaware, launched a new EHR-integrated telehealth platform for their counseling and nursing teams in 2020. From Jan. to Nov. 2022, they doubled the 2021 telehealth visits record with over 1,300 online appointments.

Lee Health, Florida, implemented an EHR-integrated telemedicine solution with remote patient monitoring functionality. The system collects home patient data; designated nurses analyze it and escalate the cases if needed. Previously, 17% of remotely monitored patients needed a higher level of care, and now the numbers decreased to 3%-5%.

Healthcare IT Consultant at ScienceSoft with 9+ years of experience

Do nurses need certifications to provide telehealth care?

American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) and the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN) do not recognize telehealth nursing as a separate nursing practice or subspecialty. In other words, telenursing can be easily implemented into everyday practice because nurses do not need additional certifications to use such apps.

Cost Drivers and Investments

General investment size factors

  • Complexity and quantity of telenursing app functions (e.g., text chats, videoconferencing, chatbots, connected smart devices, VoIP communication, etc.).
  • Number and complexity of needed integrations with third-party software (e.g., EHR/EMR, CRM, HIS).

Additional investment size factors

Connected medical devices (glucometers, biosensors, stethoscopes, pulse oximeters, etc.).

Operational costs

  • Cloud services used in the telenursing app.
  • Higher bandwidth for quality video consultations.
Pricing Information

Based on ScienceSoft’s experience, the cost of a telemedicine nursing solution for healthcare providers ranges from $150,000 to $200,000+. Telehealth solutions generally reach 100% ROI in ~6-12 months (depending on the number of telenursing appointments, number of monitored patients, etc.). To develop an advanced telenursing software product, you will need from $250,000 to $300,000+ in investments.

Want to understand the cost of your telehealth software for nursing care?

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Technologies ScienceSoft Uses to Build Reliable Telenursing Platforms

Telenursing Software by ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft brings in 18 years of experience in healthcare software development to help you implement high-quality software for remote nursing care.

Telenursing consulting

ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT experts will define the telenursing app features, architecture, and tech stack based on your business needs. Within 3-6 weeks, you’ll get a comprehensive business case with costs, ROI, and payback period.

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Telenursing application development

With a passionate team of 750+ IT professionals on board, we are ready to launch the development of your custom telenursing app and deliver a fully functional MVP in just 2-4 months.

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About ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft is a US-headquartered IT consulting and software development vendor with 34years of experience. Holding ISO 13485 certification and being experienced in the development of HIPAA-compliant software, ScienceSoft develops reliable telemedicine software for various use cases, icluding nursing care.