Tele-expertise for diagnosis of skin lesions is cost-effective in a prison setting: A retrospective cohort study of 450 patients

• Published in: PloS one 2018-09, Vol.13 (9), p.e0204545-e0204545
• Main Authors: Zarca, Kevin, Charrier, Nathanael, Mahé, Emmanuel, Guibal, Fabien, Carton, Béatrice, Moreau, François, Durand-Zaleski, Isabelle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Atopic dermatitis; Attitude of Health Personnel; Care and treatment; Cohort analysis; Consultation; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Data collection; Dermatitis; Dermatology; Dermatology - economics; Dermatology - methods; Diagnosis; Eczema; Engineering and Technology; Family physicians; Female; Health care access; Health care facilities; Health care policy; Health Information Systems; Hospital facilities; Hospitals; Humans; Information systems; Lesions; Male; Medical consultation; Medical diagnosis; Medical personnel; Medicine and Health Sciences; Melanoma; Operating costs; Patients; People and Places; Physicians; Physicians - economics; Physicians - psychology; Pictures; Population; Practice; Prisoners; Prisons; Prisons - economics; Public health; Remote Consultation - economics; Retrospective Studies; Skin cancer; Skin diseases; Skin Diseases - diagnosis; Skin Diseases - economics; Skin Diseases - epidemiology; Skin lesions; Social Sciences; Telemedicine
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204545

The prevalence of skin diseases among prisoners is higher than in the general population. Diagnosing and treating these lesions require a dermatologic advice. A tele-expertise network in dermatology for prisoners including 8 health facilities in prison and 2 hospital dermatological departments was developed to improve access to dermatologists' expertise in correctional facilities. Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness and costs of tele-expertise in dermatology for prisoners. We carried out a retrospective cohort study on data collected by the information system of the tele-expertise network. We used the MAST (Model for ASsessment of Telemedicine) model to perform a multidimensional assessment including the proportion of patients with a completed treatment plan for the skin lesions, the proportion of technical problems, the quality of the pictures, the investment and operating costs and the satisfaction of the professionals. Mean patient age was 34.2 years with 90% men. 511 requests for 450 patients were initiated. The delay from the connection to the tele-expertise software to the validation of the request was inferior to 7 min for 50% of the requests and inferior to 30 min for 85% of the requests. Overall, with tele-expertise, 82% of the patients had a completed treatment plan for the skin lesions, with 2.9% of all patients requiring a later face-to-face appointment or hospitalization, to be compared to a proportion of 35% of patients with a completed treatment plan when tele-expertise was not available. The most frequent lesions were acnea (22%) and atopic dermatitis (18%). The mean cost for one completed treatment plan was €184 by tele-expertise and €315 without tele-expertise. Tele-expertise was well accepted among physicians with all responders (n = 9) willing to continue using it. Tele-expertise is a dominant intervention in comparison to a face-to face consultation taking into account the cost of transportation and the proportion of canceled appointments and is acceptable for physicians. NCT02309905.