Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care from a distance. It has been used to overcome distance barriers and to improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. It is also used to save lives in critical care and situations. Although there were distant precursors to telemedicine, it is essentially a product of 20th century telecommunication and information technologies. These technologies permit communications between patient and medical staff with both convenience and fidelity, as well as the transmission of medical, imaging and health informatics data from one site to another. Telemedicine has become an accepted concept in health care worldwide. The practice of health care using interactive audio, visual and data communications is the need of hour. This includes health care delivery diagnosis, consultation and treatment, as well as education and transfer of medical data. The continued poorer health status of rural and remote areas when compared with their urban counterparts is cause for concern. The use of advanced technology to improve access to health care has the potential to assist in addressing this problem. Telemedicine is one example of such technology which has advanced rapidly in its capacity to increase access to healthcare services or provide previously unavailable services. The important anticipated benefits of greater access to health care services are improved health outcomes and more cost-effective delivery.

A descriptive survey design was used for conducting the study. A sample of 70 staff nurses were selected using simple random sampling method from a selected tertiary level hospital in Ernakulam District, Kerala. Ethical guidelines like confidentiality, anonymity, informed consent were followed throughout the study. The research tool consists of demographic proforma, a structured knowledge questionnaire, structured checklist to assess attitude and structured checklist to assess perceived barriers. The Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the socio demographic data, knowledge, attitude and barriers [1-7].

Section 1: Description of sample characteristics.

Figure 1: Frequency distribution of sample characteristics such as age, gender, and degree (n=70).

Figure 2: Frequency distribution of sample characteristics such as designation, current experience, previous experience, and previous knowledge (n=70).

Section 2: Assess the knowledge of staff nurses regarding telemedicine

Table 1: Frequency and percentage distribution of knowledge scores (n=70).

The majority of staff nurses had poor knowledge (56%) and 24% had average knowledge.

Table 2: Mean & Standard deviation of knowledge scores among staff nurses (n=70).

Section 3: Assess attitude of staff nurses towards telemedicine

Table 3: Frequency and percentage of the attitude of staff nurses towards telemedicine.

Table 4: Frequency and percentage of attitude of staff nurses towards telemedicine.

Section 4: Assessment of perceived barriers for effective implementation of telemedicine

Table 5: Perceived barriers for effective implementation of telemedicine.

This study concludes that majority of nurses have poor knowledge and negative attitude towards telemedicine. Most of them reported lack of training and high costs are the barriers for effective implementation of telemedicine. If proper training is given to them it helps to improve the knowledge and there by helps to generate a positive attitude.

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