• Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2011

    Incorporating teledermatology into emergency medicine.

    • Jim Muir, Cathy Xu, Sanjoy Paul, Andrew Staib, Iain McNeill, Philip Singh, Samantha Davidson, H Peter Soyer, and Michael Sinnott.
    • Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
    • Emerg Med Australas. 2011 Oct 1;23(5):562-8.

    ObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of using a store-and-forward Skin Emergency Telemedicine Service (SETS) to provide rapid specialist diagnostic and management advice for dermatological cases in an ED.MethodsThis pilot study was conducted at the Princess Alexandra Hospital between August 2008 and August 2009. Study subjects were consenting patients over 18 years of age who presented with a dermatological condition to the ED. The ED doctor sent the patient's history, examination findings and the digital images of the skin conditions to a secure email address, which automatically forwarded this to the teledermatologist. The teledermatologist reviewed the cases and sent advice on diagnosis and management to the referring ED doctor via email and/or telephone. Face-to-face follow-up consultations with the patients were conducted within 2 weeks. The diagnostic and management concordance between ED doctors, teledermatologists and reviewing dermatologists were analysed.ResultsA total of 60 patients participated in the present study. SETS provided a rapid response with 56 (93%) of ED consultations receiving a dermatology opinion within 2 h. Face-to-face follow up occurred in 50 patients (83%). Statistical analysis showed significant levels of agreement between tele-diagnosis and ED diagnosis of 71.2% (Kappa 0.42) and tele-diagnosis and final clinical diagnosis of 98% (Kappa: 0.93). The clinical management concordance was 96% in complete agreement and 4% in relative agreement between the teledermatologists and reviewing dermatologists, based on chart review.ConclusionThe present study has shown that SETS can provide rapid and accurate diagnostic and treatment advice from a specialist for dermatological presentations to the ED.© 2011 The Authors. EMA © 2011 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…