Telemedicine Slashes Appointment Wait Times
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Telemedicine reduces the wait time for dermatological appointments from six months or more to less than a week.
The Ontario Telemedicine Network - which oversees an area the size of Texas and Montana combined - has cut the wait time to get an office appointment with a dermatologist from six month to a year to just five days as a results of implementing the SmartConsult Teledermatology platform
According to mHealth News, OTN facilitated 8,400 consults through the platform in just a year. Additionally, it has helped “to reduce wait times, speed up diagnoses and, in general, ease a whole lot of fears about whether that lesion is cancerous or this infection needs further treatment.” Referring physicians are able to photograph patients with virtually any camera and send the photos and data to a specialist.
“There are over 1,000 primary care physicians using OTN’s TeledermSF program with more doctors joining the program every day,” said Stewart Stein, OTN’s manager of Store Forward resources. “Their ability to get derm consults within five days is helping accelerate patients’ access to diagnosis and treatment. You can imagine how comforting this is to patients who may be suffering from a dermatological issue or are anxious about the seriousness of their skin lesion.”
A recent study from Penn Medicine found remote consultations from dermatologists can help deliver care more efficiently in busy academic hospitals and potentially in community hospital settings.
"Dermatology support is essential for hospitalized patients, but unfortunately many hospitals lack dermatology coverage. Teledermatology may help optimize time spent by dermatologists in the inpatient setting by potentially reducing or eliminating trips to the hospital, and allowing some dermatologists to batch consultations or schedule non-urgent inpatients to be seen after discharge for outpatient appointments," said senior study author Misha Rosenbach, MD, assistant professor of Dermatology and director of the Dermatology inpatient dermatology service at Penn Medicine. "A substantial agreement between in-person and teledermatology consultants in this study demonstrates the reliability and potential of this platform."
"In addition to addressing physician shortages from a clinical standpoint, teledermatology programs are very important for vulnerable citizens in the United States and abroad," said James, past president of the American Academy of Dermatology. "It is wonderful that the impact of these teledermatology consultations continues to expand."