Interviewing for Telehealth nurse position...questions

[BrooklynRN26]

Hello All,

I have landed my first interview! Its for a Telehealth program with a major hospital corporation in NYC. Does anyone have any feedback on working in telehealth and the interview process? Any input will be greatly appreciated!

[Meema, LPN]

I work on a tele floor. I think the most important information is to know your dysrhythmias. (A-fib, A-flutter, V-tach, V-fib, AV blocks, etc.) You should also have ACLS certification (before or soon after getting the job). I didn't know any of the above (nor did I have my ACLS), but the hospital i'm working at put me through classes to learn everything. Other than that... It's a great floor to work on. Good Luck!

[nialloh, RN]

Working on a tele unit is one of the best things you can do. It opens up so many doors. From there you can go to ER, OR, ICU, etc.. While you can go to these other places without tele, it looks better in an interview if they don't have to wait for you to become comfortable with your rhythms. Also you will be used to drips, and can hit the new unit running. You have a more valuable skill set.

[BrooklynRN26]

Thanks for the replies, but I was asking about Telehealth nursing, which involves making and receiving calls to monitor patients with chronic conditions, not Telemetry. Useful info, though, thanks!

[cb_rn]

This is your first nursing job?

It could be difficult without a background in nursing assessment other than clinicals to base it on. I did some telehealth in conjunction with my home health and nursing and it was extremely difficult because you had to decipher what a lay person was telling you and assess the situation from over the phone. And your employer and patients will not be happy if you have to send a patient to the hospital over every little thing. (Sometimes you NEED to send them, not talking about that). My experience was usually good, always interesting - talking people through giving themselves IV ABX was the most interesting thing ever I think. I did find however, sometimes you get cursed at for being interfering or nosy or whatever because some of these patients are required to have the telehealth and are resentful. It does offer a lot of benefits however, we did studies proving that it reduced our patient hospitalization rates. It was a valuable service but I got some funny questions - best one - calling to check on someone that didn't take their BP that day and they wanted me to phone them in some pain medicine for their toothache. So expect to explain what it is you can't and can do a lot. Best of luck to you!

[BrooklynRN26]

Thank you so much for your response! Yes, This is my first nursing job! I agree that as a new grad my assessment skills are not what they should be for this position. I was surprised when I got the call to interview. Thanks again for the good advice!

[southern rn]

You will need good typing skills and good computer skills as well. The new grad thing wil make the job harder but not impossible. If it's anything like the job I used to do, you will use preset questions on a triage tree. The bad thing is sometimes knowing which questions to ask to get you to the right triage tree.

[Ruthiegal]

They will most likely give you a few scenario's to tell what you would do.

[BrooklynRN26]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

[tgionet1]

Hello, I am a new graduate looking into doing some telehealth opportunities as well! I was wondering if you could help me know which organizations I should apply for? I see this was a while ago this was posted, if you had success I would love to hear about it.

Thank you!