Real-time teledermatology clinics in a tertiary public hospital: A clinical audit.

BACKGROUND

Our metropolitan hospital provides a real-time videoconference teledermatology clinic to enable patients in rural and remote Queensland to access a specialist for dermatology care.

METHODS

Retrospective clinical audit of all patient referrals to the videoconference teledermatology clinic for a two-year period.

RESULTS

A total of 483 consultations for 178 patients were conducted by the teledermatology clinic. Most patients were from remote and very remote regions of Queensland with a mean distance from our metropolitan hospital to the patient's town of residence of 1295 km. The most common reason for referral, as per the referral form, was rash (32%), followed by acne (12%) and dermatitis (11%). Most (78%) referrals came from general practitioners. Around 8% of patients seen in the teledermatology clinic were converted to in-person review; 81% of patients were managed via teledermatology, and 10% of patients did not attend the scheduled teleconsultation.

CONCLUSION

The outpatient teledermatology clinic run through the Telehealth Centre of a metropolitan hospital is an effective way of delivering a general dermatology consultation service to rural and remote patients in a timely manner.