Telenursing and Telehealth. Navigating the Digital Transformation in Healthcare and Ethical Challenges: A Narrative Review

Adv Exp Med Biol. 2026;1489:109-116. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-03394-9_11.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the need for digital transformation in health, bringing about the development of national strategies, new possibilities, but also challenges. The use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence enables accurate and personalized healthcare, while telenursing can provide groundbreaking services that enable the improvement of the quality of healthcare and the efficient resource management remotely.

THE AIM: Of this literature review is to present how telenursing can transform the delivery of healthcare and what the ethical challenges by its implementation.

METHODOLOGY: A narrative review was performed using key words of "telenursing" or "telehealth" and "ethical challenges" for free full text reviews published in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus databases from 2004 to the present to encompass the most recent research findings, to summarize existing knowledge while focusing on answering the research question what are the ethical challenges that are presented by their implementation.

RESULTS: Several ethical issues in telenursing, telehealth, telecare, and artificial intelligence include informed consent, patient privacy and confidentiality, data protection and security, malpractice and liability, equitable access, quality of care, and the professional-patient relationship.

CONCLUSIONS: As artificial intelligence will progressively, part of nurses' clinical practice in their telenursing or telehealth services provision, it is crucial to address ethical considerations related to privacy, transparency, patient autonomy, and health equity to care provided using AI-driven telenursing and telehealth services.

PMID:41251998 | DOI:10.1007/978-3-032-03394-9_11