How to become a telehealth nurse: Education, careers & salaries

Telehealth nursing, which is speculated to originate as far back as the 1800s with the invention of the telephone, has expanded drastically over the last few decades. When the Covid-19 pandemic changed the way nurses deliver care practically overnight, this became even more true. Many nurses today provide virtual care in some form, and some employers even seek out nurses to fill roles that provide telehealth services exclusively.

“I think the champions for telehealth is in nursing. It’s not physician driven. It is nurse driven,” said Dr. Carolyn Rutledge, Professor and Associate Dean of Nursing at Old Dominion University (ODU).

What is telehealth nursing?

Rutledge wrote that telehealth nursing describes, “nursing professionals who care for patients from a geographical distance via audio or visual modalities,” in her paper, “Preparing Nurses for Roles in Telehealth: Now is the Time!”

Telehealth nursing is not an actual specialty itself and it does not require any special license to practice. It is a type of care that can be present in just about any medical setting. Most regular nurses today conduct some form of telehealth nursing in their jobs.

Steps to become a telehealth nurse

What do telehealth nurses do?

Telehealth nurses have many of the same responsibilities of regular nurses—how they may carry out those responsibilities, however, is where telehealth nursing diverges.

Telehealth nurses have many of the same responsibilities of regular nurses—how they may carry out those responsibilities, however, is where telehealth nursing diverges.

Common telemed duties & responsibilities

Here are some examples of a nurse’s duties and how they may be conducted in a telehealth setting:

Individual nursing roles can be incredibly varied. One nurse may do a little of everything listed above, while others may be focused on one particular aspect of patient care—it all depends on who you work for and your particular job scope.

Remote patient monitoring and education

“One thing that I think is becoming more and more popular and is an excellent way to improve patient care and patient outcomes is through remote patient monitoring,” Rutledge said. “To give you an example of some of the remote patient monitoring, many people who have dealt with heart problems have had on the Holter monitors, or have a defibrillator and pacemaker. These recordings can be sent to the cardiologist’s office and it’s usually the RN that will use these recordings and need to note whether there’s an abnormality and notify someone if that needs an action needs to be taken.”

In addition to doing remote patient monitoring, Rutledge said that she sees a lot of potential for telehealth regarding patient education. “This is an area that I really would like to see a lot of expansion occur in. It could be the patient that just been discharged from a hospital, and if you think about the patient in the hospital, they are getting ready to leave. They’ve just been hospitalized for something concerning and you try to do patient education as you they are going out the door. How much of that do you think will really stick? And there’s so many times that I think a patient should get a 24-hour follow up to see if they had any questions about the discharge planning or if they had been able to pick up the medications that they needed.”

Education needed to become a telehealth nurse

The education required to become a telehealth nurse is no different from the education needed to earn a registered nurse (RN) license. To become an RN, you must graduate from an accredited nursing program:

Nursing students are exposed to some telehealth training in their degree programs, but you’ll also gain a lot of this experience on the job once you get your license and start working.

What it takes to be a telehealth nurse

Even though most nurses today have some experience using telehealth services, Rutledge said there are a few things nurses should know and understand if they want to create the best patient experience possible and have the best outcomes.

Before you can do anything else, nurses need to know how to use the technology itself. “You don’t want to get on a telehealth visit and that be the first time you’ve touched the equipment.” After that, nurses should understand best practices for how to use that equipment.

“If a nurse is not trained in how to do telehealth appropriately, it can be very problematic. ODU coined the term telehealth etiquette, which talks about how you approach the patient through telehealth. Part of that is things like having the patient hold up their ID to make sure you’re actually talking to the correct patient. People don’t think about things like this: lighting, the sound on the computer, can the patient be heard and can the nurse be heard.

“If a nurse is not trained in how to do telehealth appropriately, it can be very problematic.”

“Second is empathy, really helping nurses learn how to portray empathy when they’re doing a visit with the patient through telehealth. And that can be things as simple as when we can’t reach out and hug the patient or touch a patient, but we can say to the patient ‘I wish I was with you because I would love to give you a hug.’ That can make a huge impact.”

Telehealth nurse salary

The median annual salary for registered nurses is $86,070 according to the 2023 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Nursing jobs will grow by 5.6% through 2032, the BLS says, due largely to the growing number of older Americans.

The top-paying states for RNs are concentrated on the coasts (e.g. California, Hawaii, Oregon, Alaska, Washington, New York). The top five states that employ the most nurses in the country are California, Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)