eHealth in nursing--Already routine? Results of two case studies from Germany

eHealth activities are beginning to emerge from the research domain and many industrialized countries are embarking on national eHealth programs. This does not mean, however, that nurses will automatically benefit from the new technology. The aim of this paper therefore is to identify key issues for a successful integration of nursing into eHealth scenarios. Two eHealth case studies from Germany serve to illustrate the importance of focussing on strategic applications, integrating users and managing change and innovation properly. eHealth - supported applications embrace (i) all multidisciplinary processes enabling patient safety through continuity of care, (ii) nurse-led discharge, case and disease management and (iii) cross-sector communication including the electronic nursing summary. We found that the German eHealth program does not meet these criteria sufficiently. We therefore conclude that there is an urgent need to incorporate existing results of research and demonstration projects and a need for further research. eHealth initiatives in other countries must be evaluated by the same criteria for their capacity to include nurses in eHealth--supported patient care.