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. We examined the challenges from the perspective of nurses in a tele-ICU. We 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.