Pilot study of store and forward teledermatology services in Perth, Western Australia

SUMMARY In remote areas, telemedicine services can improve the quality of access to specialist medical care and dermatology is well suited to the use of this technology. There is no published work on teledermatology services in Australia. Our purpose was to investigate the reliability of dermatologi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Australasian journal of dermatology 1999-11, Vol.40 (4), p.190-193
Main Authors: Tait, Clare P, Clay, Christopher D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Computerized, statistical medical data processing and models in biomedicine
dermatology
Diagnosis, Differential
Feasibility Studies
Humans
Medical computing and teaching
Medical sciences
Pilot Projects
Prospective Studies
Referral and Consultation
Remote Consultation - methods
rural health care
Rural Health Services - organization & administration
Skin Diseases - diagnosis
telemedicine
Tropical medicine
User-Computer Interface
Western Australia
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Summary:SUMMARY In remote areas, telemedicine services can improve the quality of access to specialist medical care and dermatology is well suited to the use of this technology. There is no published work on teledermatology services in Australia. Our purpose was to investigate the reliability of dermatological diagnoses obtained using a store and forward telemedicine system, which is being developed to offer specialist consultative services to patients in remote areas of Western Australia. We report on a small prospective non‐randomized pilot study conducted at Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia which compared diagnoses reached following telemedicine consultations with diagnoses reached following traditional face‐to‐face consultations. In 25 out of 30 consultations, identical diagnoses were reached. In the remaining five cases, the preferred diagnosis and first differential diagnosis were reversed in order of preference. We feel this system is sufficiently promising to trial more extensively in the field.
ISSN:0004-8380
1440-0960
DOI:10.1046/j.1440-0960.1999.00358.x