We are becoming older and more people remain in their home with the need for care, as well as these persons for some reasons be hospitalized. This imply for the need of coordinated care planning in hospitals, as the person would be able to leave the ward in a safe manner. With an increasing number of elderly persons in need of care interventions in their home, the need for coordinated care planning in hospitals will also increase. Such planning is today being performed increasingly often via video conferencing. This form of digital encounters poses new challenges for the nurse in creating and maintaining a mutuality. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how coordinated care planning via video conferencing affects the ability of health care professionals to understand and interpret the patient’s situation from a holistic perspective, thus performing a person-centered meeting at a distance. A qualitative research approach was used to gain an understanding of nurses’ experience of coordinated care planning via video conferencing, where seven semi-structured interviews have been conducted. The result shows that the communication is affected and that meetings via video technology lose proximity and thus a part of the human contact. This can disrupt the possibility of seeing each other as persons but can be compensated by a person-centered approach. The technology can act as a means of human interaction, but not as a compensation for it. Coordinated care planning via video conferencing involves challenges in conveying presence and genuine interest that compensates for the loss of physical presence. The nurses need to be well acquainted with person-centered care in order to meet the patient despite the barrier that the screen may create. Proper technology can be used with great time gains to access each other regardless of geographical location and can contribute to human interaction but not replace it. © 2019 Academic Conferences Limited. All rights reserved.
Funders;Fyrbodal Health Academy