Table 2.

Strategies used by tele-ICU nurses in dealing with barriers

#	Strategies	Description	# of nurses
1	Adapt to ICU	The tele-ICU nurse has to adapt the way they deal with ICU staff, so they can be more receptive to the tele-ICU.	7
2	Anticipate or prevent problems	Tele-ICU nurse anticipate problem and take action to prevent problems.	8
3	Ask for (additional) information	The tele-nurse asks for (additional or specific) information from ICU staff to assess changes in patient conditions, ICU protocols, ICU equipment, when tele-ICU nurse cannot find information on the flow sheet.	7
4	Ask for support	The tele-ICU nurse asks for help and support from their colleagues in the tele-ICU in order to handle multiple ICUs.	9
5	Check information	The tele-ICU nurse checks to make sure that the patient information that s/he has is correct	4
6	Facilitate communication	The tele-ICU nurse performs actions that may improve relationships and communications with ICUs.	10
7	Figure out	The tele-ICU nurse tries to figure out how to work with different ICUs, different EHRs and different ICU nurses (i.e. how to communicate with them).	6
8	Obtain and search for (additional) information	The tele-ICU nurse obtains and searches for (additional) patient related information without interacting with ICU staff.	8
9	Organize information and tasks	The tele-ICU nurse better organizes the available patient information in order to help him/her deal with multiple patients. For example, tele-ICU nurse uses paper notes to keep track of patient, uses a mental checklist to remember what to come back to after getting interrupted.	10
10	Prioritize	The tele-ICU nurse makes active decisions on what problem to tackle first. For example, when there are a lot of admissions, tele-ICU nurse needs to prioritize which patient to handle first.	4
11	Provide support	The tele-ICU nurse provides informational or emotional support to ICU nurses or tele-ICU nurses to help them taking care of patients.	10
12	Share information	The tele-ICU nurse shares information (such as standardized protocol) with ICUs.	4
13	Take little or no action	The tele-ICU nurse does not interact with ICU nurses because of lack of ICU acceptance.	4
14	Workaround problem	The tele-ICU nurse works around the problem. For example, the tele-ICU nurse uses password cheat sheets to help him/her remember the passwords, the tele-ICU nurse tricks the system to log in	9