A cost study of teleconsultation for primary-care ophthalmology and dermatology.

Teleconsultations were performed between a health centre in a small Finnish town and a university hospital 55 km away. Telemedicine consultations were carried out with a total of 42 patients suffering from various eye and skin disorders. We evaluated the costs of the teleconsultations in the health centre and the conventional alternative of the patient travelling to the hospital. The cost of conventional consultations, which was not affected by the patient workload, was EU126 per patient for ophthalmology and EU143 per patient for dermatology. The cost of the teleconsultations per patient decreased as the number of patients increased. There were cost savings in relation to teleconsultations when the annual numbers of patients were more than 110 in ophthalmology and 92 in dermatology. Benefits and savings achieved through teleconsultations mainly consisted of reduced transportation costs and reduced paperwork both at the health centre and at the university hospital, as well as time savings for the patient. Another important benefit was improved medical education. The present study shows that teleconsultations can be performed in a cost-effective way in a relatively small health centre.