• Christopher Brenke, Elke A Lassel, Darcey Terris, Aysel Kurt, Kirsten Schmieder, Stefan O Schoenberg, and Gerald Weisser.
• Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
• J Neurol Surg A Cent Eur Neurosurg. 2014 May 1; 75 (3): 217-23.

BackgroundA significant proportion of acute care neurosurgical patients present to hospital outside regular working hours. The objective of our study was to evaluate the structure of neurosurgical on-call services in Germany, the use of modern communication devices and teleradiology services, and the personal acceptance of modern technologies by neurosurgeons.Materials And MethodsA nationwide survey of all 141 neurosurgical departments in Germany was performed. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: one for neurosurgical departments and one for individual neurosurgeons. The questionnaire, available online and mailed in paper form, included 21 questions about on-call service structure; the availability and use of communication devices, teleradiology services, and other information services; and neurosurgeons' personal acceptance of modern technologies.ResultsThe questionnaire return rate from departments was 63.1% (89/141), whereas 187 individual neurosurgeons responded. For 57.3% of departments, teleradiology services were available and were frequently used by 62.2% of neurosurgeons. A further 23.6% of departments described using smartphone screenshots of computed tomography (CT) images transmitted by multimedia messaging service (MMS), and 8.6% of images were described as sent by unencrypted email. Although 47.0% of neurosurgeons reported owning a smartphone, only 1.1% used their phone for on-call image communication.ConclusionTeleradiology services were observed to be widely used by on-call neurosurgeons in Germany. Nevertheless, a significant number of departments appear to use outdated techniques or techniques that leave patient data unprotected. On-call neurosurgeons in Germany report a willingness to adopt more modern approaches, utilizing readily available smartphones or tablet technology.Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

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