Paper short abstract:

Technology turns nursing care into an absent profession with new skills in new practices. Technology has brought on opportunities for good care, which are not habitually reflected on or debated between nurses. We want to explore situated nursing knowledge that represents new skills and nursing practices.

Paper long abstract:

Technology shifts nursing care to an absent profession: physical presence is no longer conditional when nurses and patients perform telecare. The well-worn actions nurses perform at the bedside are replaced by new skills for telecare. Nursing scholars and nursing schools are already paying attention to these new skills for day to day practices. By defining the required skills for telecare we may not grasp the changes in the profession completely though. There are questions to be raised on the relation between new skills, new practices and new knowledge, as all define a profession. In a current research project we are already paying attention to how telecare leads to new nursing practices. We see how technology has brought on new opportunities for good care, but also how nurses do not discuss among themselves what defines these new practices and what consequences they have for their profession. This might be brought on by the fact that the new practices are difficult to name (Hirschauer, 2006). This paper wants to explore if new nursing skills and practices call for or represent new nursing knowledge. In the slipstream of Haraway's situated knowledge, as applied by Puig de la Bellacase (2012), we want name and discuss new nursing knowledge, hence 'thinking-with' and 'dissenting-with' the nursing profession, taking care of the knowledge and the relations that come with it.