B.E.L.T.^TM: Framework for Nurse Champions to Successful Implement Sustainable Telehealth Services

Despite the growing use of telehealth and mobile health, the implementation of these services remains challenging. Nurses, who are often called upon by healthcare organizations to take on the role of champions to initiate and promote the uptake of telehealth services, have expressed a need for a holistic implementation framework. To complement the existing guidelines and recommendations for the provision of telehealth services, the B.E.L.T.™ Framework is an easy tool and catchy mnemonic to guide a systematic environmental assessment of an organization’s readiness, which can foster successful implementation. B.E.L.T.™ stands for “Bandwidth/Broadband, Education/Environment, Leadership & Technology”, as these have been identified by the authors to be the recurrent sources of difficulty in implementation, in both developed and emerging countries. From a metaphorical perspective, B.E.L.T.^TM represents a loop. In which these identified elements are interdependent; any breach in this loop will ultimately influence one’s readiness for implementation.

Keywords: Nursing; Clinical champion; B.E.L.T.^TM framework; Telehealth; Telemedicine; Mobile health