How telemedicine is helping with dermatology care

When I was at an appointment with an allergist not long ago, his cell phone rang.

“Need to get that?” I asked.

He looked down at his phone and said, “It’s a patient sending me a photo of her rash.”

Right then and there, without her interrupting her work day or perhaps driving for miles to his office, the patient could share the skin condition in real time.

This experience mirrors the results of a study featured in an American Medical Association article. The study showed that when patients in remote areas are linked to dermatologists, they receive “more accurate diagnoses and better disease management than they would receive without access to a specialist.”

The study looked at almost 1,500 patients who consulted through teledermatology and found 70 percent of patients received different diagnoses from the dermatologists than from the referring physicians. In all but 2 percent of cases, the dermatologist recommended the patients change the way they managed their conditions.

Besides that, clinical outcomes improved for 70 percent of the more than 300 patients who had follow-up visits within the next year.

April W. Armstrong, MD, MPH, director of teledermatology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine, hopes the study results will show dermatologists and other physicians how telemedicine can help patients, especially in remote, medically underserved areas.

Mobile apps help detect skin cancer

Did you see the story we shared about a mobile app that patients can use to learn if a suspicious skin spot or mole may be cancerous?

SpotCheck allows patients to use their smartphones to send a photo of a spot so a board-certified dermatologist can check it out.

Does your health care organization use telemedicine for diagnosis and treatment? Please tell us how.