Morris Christopher, Scott Richard E, Mars Maurice
Department of TeleHealth, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2018;254:70-76.
The use of smartphones and IM has the potential to transform the delivery of health services by providing an easy to use, cost-effective tool for remote doctor-to-doctor and patient-to-doctor consultation and diagnosis. Whilst the introduction of new technologies has improved access to healthcare, it has also created new challenges. The aim of this paper was to review the literature on the use of Instant Messaging (IM) and IM applications (apps) in dermatology.
PubMed, Scopus, and Science Direct were searched for multiple terms for 20 individual IM apps linked to the terms telehealth, telemedicine, ehealth, e-health, mhealth, or m-health. After title and abstract review, 31 papers met the inclusion criteria of IM use in dermatology.
Three papers, all from the developing world reported the benefits of using IM in a clinical dermatology service. Other uses included behavioural change, disease management, diagnosis, triage, screening, diagnoses, home monitoring, education, and administrative. Little mention was made of medico-legal issues such as consent, confidentiality, privacy and data security and storage.
Currently there is little use of IM in clinical dermatology services, but its potential is great. There is need to address ethical and medico-legal concerns and develop guidelines for its use. IM is a simple, cheap and effective solution for the developing world.
使用智能手机和即时通讯工具具有通过提供一种易于使用、成本效益高的工具来实现远程医生对医生以及患者对医生的咨询和诊断，从而改变医疗服务提供方式的潜力。虽然新技术的引入改善了医疗保健的可及性，但也带来了新的挑战。本文的目的是综述关于即时通讯（IM）及其应用程序（应用）在皮肤科应用的文献。
在PubMed、Scopus和科学Direct数据库中搜索与远程医疗、远程医学、电子健康、移动健康等术语相关的20个独立IM应用的多个术语。经过标题和摘要审查，31篇论文符合IM在皮肤科应用的纳入标准。
三篇均来自发展中世界的论文报告了在临床皮肤科服务中使用IM的益处。其他用途包括行为改变、疾病管理、诊断、分诊、筛查、诊断、家庭监测、教育和行政管理。很少提及诸如同意、保密、隐私以及数据安全和存储等医学法律问题。
目前IM在临床皮肤科服务中的应用很少，但其潜力巨大。需要解决伦理和医学法律问题并制定其使用指南。IM对发展中世界来说是一种简单、廉价且有效的解决方案。
