Diagnostic spectrum and therapeutic efficiency in teledermatology–Results of the largest cohort study to date

Abstract

Timely and comprehensive dermatological care is a major challenge. Digitized medical consultation offers a possibility to overcome this problem. Here, we studied the diagnostic spectrum and treatment success in teledermatology in the largest cohort to date. Over 12 months, 21 725 individuals received a diagnosis and therapeutic advice using the asynchronous image‐text method. In the context of quality management, 1802 individuals (~10%) of both sexes with a mean age of 33.7 years (SD 15.36) received a follow‐up 3 months after the initial consultation to assess the treatment outcome. Of these, 81.2% did not require a face‐to‐face consultation. Therapeutic efficiency could be ascertained in 83.3% of the patients, whereas 10.9% did not improve, and 5.8% did not provide an information on the course of therapy. Teledermatology is a useful tool in digitalized medicine and complements the classical in‐person dermatological examination, as shown by the high degree of treatment efficacy in this study. Although face‐to‐face consultations can not and should not be completely substituted by teledermatology it reflects a significant contribution to patient care and justifies the further expansion of digital structures in dermatological care.

Patient and physician outcomes of a store‐and‐forward teledermatology application in Germany

“…In summary, the S&F application showed good feasibility, satisfaction, and acceptability while improving patients' health status. Similar to our results (85.1% solved requests), Lindemann et al 3 found therapeutic efficiency in 83.3% of patients, whereas Sondermann et al 4 stated that a diagnosis was possible in 90.3% of cases. Concerning the latter, 35.7% of patients were still recommended to see a physician in-person (21.3% in our study) and only 46.9% of patients received a therapy recommendation (71.0% in our study).…”