AACN Tele-critical Care Nursing Consensus Statement

“AACN Tele-critical Care Nursing Practice: An Expert Consensus Statement Supporting Acute, Progressive and Critical Care 2022” provides hospitals, leaders, and nurses with recommendations, clinical vignettes, and a framework to implement, evaluate, and improve their evolving practice.

This new statement explores the many practice changes and keeps pace with expanding applications in this area of telemedicine, and supports the terminology shift to tele-critical care. It identifies essential tele-critical care elements, reflects current evidence, and delivers a fresh perspective to this fast-growing area of healthcare.

The 2021 tele-critical care nursing expert consensus statement task force brought together tele-critical care nursing leaders from diverse backgrounds to share best practices, evidence, and lessons learned. The expertise and dynamic, front-line viewpoint of these experts has resulted in a comprehensive, patient-centric update. Their experience delivering both on-site direct care and remote care was instrumental in developing clinical vignettes and outlining key tele-critical care nursing interventions.

The vignettes are real-world examples of how each key recommendation is implemented to provide continuity of care; demonstrate the value of tele-critical care nursing for a strong return on investment; identify high-risk patients; and decrease mortality rates by leveraging clinician expertise and technology, and partnering with on-site nurses to provide expert evidence-based care.