Mobile Teledermatology: A Promising Future in Clinical Practice

Abstract

Background: As a product of electronic health, teledermatology is a cost-effective means of improving access to care, facilitating specialist consultations, and supporting patient self-management. Even so, use of traditional teledermatology services is limited by infrastructure and costs in the form of digital cameras, computers, and Internet access.Methods: Considering the significant improvement in smartphone camera resolution and the rapidly increasing number of physicians using smartphones, we explored the use of smartphones as reliable, effective clinical tools in store-and-forward teledermatology. We describe the technical specifications of modern smartphone cameras, the widespread use of smartphones by physicians, and the advantages of smartphones over traditional camera and Internet teledermatology, and we propose recommendations as to how mobile teledermatology may be more effectively used in modern dermatologic practice.Contexte: La té lé dermatologie, en tant que produit é lectronique de santé , est un moyen efficace d'accroître l'accè s aux soins, de faciliter les consultations de spé cialistes et de soutenir les patients dans leur prise en charge personnelle. Toutefois, l'infrastructure né cessaire et les coû ts lié s aux camé ras numé riques, aux ordinateurs et à l'accè s Internet freinent l'utilisation des services en té lé dermatologie classique.Mé thode: Compte tenu de la ré solution grandement amé lioré e des camé ras de té lé phones intelligents et du nombre, en croissance rapide, de mé decins qui font usage de ce type d'appareil, l'é tude a porté sur l'utilisation des té lé phones intelligents comme outil clinique fiable et efficace, doté des fonctions d'enregistrement et de retransmission, en té lé dermatologie. Nous faisons é tat des caracté ristiques techniques des camé ras installé es dans les té lé phones intelligents de derniè re gé né ration, de l'utilisation ré pandue des té lé phones intelligents par les mé decins ainsi que des avantages des té lé phones intelligents comparativement aux camé ras ordinaires et à la té lé dermatologie par Internet; à cela s'ajoutent des recommandations sur la maniè re de rendre plus efficace encore le recours à la té lé dermatologie en mé decine moderne.

Can We Trust the Use of Smartphone Cameras in Clinical Practice? Laypeople Assessment of Their Image Quality

“…[25][26][27] It is unclear whether this would also be recommended with a smartphone camera and whether the use of flash would have yielded different results from the results obtained here without flash. 28 Our results provide good indications that smartphones from three different platforms (Apple, BlackBerry, and Android) can provide medical practitioners with a working tool that can satisfactorily assist photographic documentation and imagebased communication. New generations of all three models used are available and likely to perform at least as well as the ones we have studied, and, hopefully, costs barriers may be reduced in the future so that these smartphones can be available to professionals from resource-poor settings.…”

Can You See Me Now? Video Supplementation for Pediatric Teledermatology Cases

“…Costs of high‐definition cameras, computers, and Internet servers limit traditional SF teledermatology services . Smartphones have been used and validated in SF teledermatology with wide acceptance .…”

“…When integrating video into a teledermatology system, the greatest focus should be on its application for less common conditions or complex cases in which video may be helpful in portraying distinguishing cutaneous features and patient characteristics. Costs of high-definition cameras, computers, and Internet servers limit traditional SF teledermatology services (14). Smartphones have been used and validated in SF teledermatology with wide acceptance (5,15).…”

“…Smartphones have been used and validated in SF teledermatology with wide acceptance (5,15). Early in the study we replaced digital highdefinition video with the iPhone video camera because we found smartphones easier to use because of their familiar user interface and reliable transmission of high-quality images without the need for ancillary equipment (14,16). Smartphone technology enhances the applicability of our findings and is in line with a changing health care delivery system and growing focus on mobile technology (17).…”

Distraction of clinicians by smartphones in hospitals: a concept analysis

“…This technology benefits healthcare providers, giving access to medical references, research tools and patient information (Baumgart 2011), medical consultation (Divall et al 2013), documentation (Huff 2011, Yeung et al 2012, and patient education (Shepherd et al 2012). Applications exist for many clinical specialties (Dala-Ali et al 2011, Franko 2011, Jensen Ang et al 2014, Sohn et al 2013, Zuo et al 2013.…”