Nurses Suffer Digital Compassion Fatigue

Tethered to Tech, Nurses Suffer Digital Compassion Fatigue

Jodi Helmer, Medscape

February 04, 2026

When Michelle Weihman started her nursing career, electronic health records (EHRs) were still experimental, so she relied on paper charts to document essential patient information. More than a decade later, screens are omnipresent in the acute care hospital in Las Vegas, where Weihman manages a team of registered nurses (RNs).

“The nurses who [got their licenses] during the pandemic didn’t even touch a human being in nursing school,” Weihman said. “Now we hand them a computer screen and say, ‘This is your focus.’”

Nurses document care, monitor patients, message the care team, and send digital notes throughout their shifts. They spend 35% of their shifts on digital documentation, often spending more time on the EHR than on direct or indirect patient care.

Now, nurses who spend an increased amount of time on screens, combined with remote patient monitoring and telehealth use, are developing what’s called compassion fatigue.

Logged In and Burned Out

Telehealth has transformed how nurses deliver care. It’s been hailed as a tool to prioritize patient needs, reduce barriers to care, improve healthcare access and care coordination, and optimize healthcare resources. But for RNs on the frontlines, providing empathetic care via a computer screen is leading to a new phenomenon known as digital compassion fatigue.

Emerging research on digital compassion fatigue suggests that it includes emotional numbing in digital care, persistent exhaustion following screen-based interactions, compassion withdrawal, cognitive overload from demonstrating empathy on screen, concerns about providing inadequate care in virtual environments, and a decline in the quality of care.

“Digital compassion fatigue is very similar to traditional compassion fatigue,” Audrey Hai, PhD, MSW, assistant professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, told Medscape Medical News. “But digital compassion fatigue has some unique contributors.”

It’s often more difficult to perceive nonverbal cues and get feedback from patients in a virtual setting, forcing nurses to work harder to obtain information; nurses may also work harder to amplify their expressions or exaggerate verbal warmth to ensure that empathy is transmitted over the screen.

“Because of the digital screen barrier, you feel like you have to amplify your empathy,” Hai adds. “You’re staring at the screen for so long that it’s draining not just physically but cognitively and emotionally too.”

Erik Larson, PMHNP-BC, a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Denver, also points to dropped connections, frozen screens, poor internet connections, and other technological difficulties as persistent challenges that contribute to digital compassion fatigue.

“It can disrupt the flow of a conversation,” Larson said. “I think sometimes [the patients] feel that there is less of a helpful interaction, so nurses work harder to make up for that in their encounters.”

Providing care via telehealth can also be isolating. Nurses spend more time on their screens and less time interacting with their colleagues and patients. Meanwhile, technologies that use remote cameras for patient observation are becoming more common but reduce interactions between RNs and their patients.

For nurses monitoring their patients on screens, repeated alerts and limited context can accelerate emotional distancing. The detachment can feed burnout and increase the likelihood of compassion fatigue.

Blurred Boundaries

For bedside nurses, it’s not telehealth visits that lead to digital compassion fatigue; it’s the sheer volume of screen-based tasks embedded into the workflow. Tasks ranging from charting to messaging are done on screens, and digital demands don’t end when shifts are over.

Staffing apps and tools, such as Snapchat, keep RNs connected in group chats outside of their scheduled shifts. This kind of constant connection can make RNs feel like they need to be there for their patients, peers, and administrators 24/7.

“A lot of digital care communication is asynchronous,” said Hai. “Emails, portal messages, refilling prescriptions from digital requests…means you get much more communication digitally that adds to the caseload…and you feel pressure to respond right away because you care about [your patients].”

The impact is burnout. Almost two thirds of nurses experience burnout — and the numbers are even higher among nurses younger than 25 years. Being tethered to technology makes it hard for nurses to get a break because unfinished documentation and incoming messages follow them on their lunch breaks, after their shifts, and even to the bathroom, according to Weihman.

“[Some nurses] feel so guilty taking their lunch break,” she told Medscape Medical News. “They’ll sit at their lunch break doing their documentation.”

Combatting digital compassion fatigue requires changes in how care is delivered and supported. Hai noted that mindfulness, self-care, peer support, and other traditional strategies for addressing compassion fatigue remain relevant for nurses working in digital environments, but there is also a need to adapt strategies for digital environments.

Intentional screen breaks, clear communication boundaries, and institutional policies that allow for time away from technology are essential. There is also a training gap that needs to be addressed.

Telehealth remains underrepresented in nursing school curricula, leaving nurses without the knowledge and high-level interpersonal skills needed to provide care in these digital environments.

Hai also stresses a need for hospital administrators to provide training that prepares nurses for digital care, training them not just in the technology but also on how to convey and interpret empathy through a screen while minimizing the risk for digital compassion fatigue.

Establishing strategies to minimize digital intrusion, foster a human connection through a screen, and manage digital compassion fatigue is essential.

“This cannot become the new normal,” Weihman said. “Nurses have to be able to shut it [technology] down; otherwise, we’re going to lose all of our nurses.”

Jodi Helmer is a freelance journalist who writes about health and wellness for Fortune, AARP, WebMD, Fitbit, and GE HealthCare.