Nursing Staff Requirements for Telemedicine in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

This research gauged nursing staff acceptance of a videoconferencing system within a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and identified a set of recommendations to be integrated into system design to maximize usability of the system by nursing end users. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected through interview and questionnaire methods, designed to elicit system requirements from the nursing staff perspective. It is argued that videoconferencing should not substitute the physical tradition in which neonatal infants are monitored, nor be seen as a replacement for face-to-face communication. However, videoconferencing may provide a workable alternative when face-to-face communication is not possible. In particular, clinical and medical staff should maintain control over the operation of video links at all times.