The healthcare system within the United States is experiencing increasing stress related to issues of access to care, affordability, healthcare provider shortages, rising cost of provision of care, and deteriorating financial milieu of the population in general. Responding to these conditions is forcing healthcare providers to open their practices to new methodologies for delivery of services such as increasing technological accessories to meet patient needs. Successful adoption of new healthcare technologies, requires initial recognition by those needing to adopt change of the need for change, awareness of any benefit inherent in a particular change, and acceptance of the change as a positive experience. Unfortunately, the trend in healthcare has been to implement new methodology or technology without attention to assessing readiness for change. Responsiveness of healthcare providers towards engendering change is thus slowed immensely and many programs to meet patient needs with technology fail early, before full benefit can be recognized. Purpose and Scope: The purpose of this project was to describe the level of knowledge, attitude, perceptions, and behaviors regarding telemedicine among Nurse Practitioners (NP) before and after an educational intervention derived from evidence based studies on telemedicine.
