The use of teledermatology for the diagnosis of skin cancer in adults

Background Early accurate detection of all skin cancer types is essential to guide appropriate management and to improve morbidity and survival. Melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are high risk skin cancers which have the potential to metastasise and ultimately lead to death, whereas basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is usually localised with potential to infiltrate and damage surrounding tissue. Anxiety around missing early curable cases needs to be balanced against inappropriate referral and unnecessary excision of benign lesions. Teledermatology provides a way for generalist clinicians to access the opinion of a specialist dermatologist for skin lesions that they consider to be suspicious without referring the patients concerned through the normal referral pathway. Teledermatology consultations can be ‘store-and-forward’ with electronic digital images of a lesion sent to a dermatologist for review at a later time, or can be live and interactive consultations using video conferencing to connect the patient, referrer and dermatologist in real time. Objectives To determine the diagnostic accuracy of teledermatology for the detection of any skin cancer (melanoma, BCC or cSCC) inNIH

Digital diffusion in the clinical trenches : findings from a Telemedicine Needs Assessment

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-110).Broadly stated, this dissertation focuses on how practitioners and provider organizations integrate the computer and web into healthcare delivery. The opportunity that afforded this research was a Telemedicine Needs Assessment commissioned by a Massachusetts-based provider organization, consisting of two hospitals and 29 community group practices (CGP). The Telemedicine Needs Assessment incorporated qualitative and quantitative research programs to include: 1. cross-sectional, institution-wide, in-depth interviews; 2. participant observation at administrative and clinical day-to-day operations, and lastly, 3. a 68 item, closed-ended survey distributed to all 586 clinical practitioners to assess the access, use, and perceived needs of current computer, web, and telemedicine technologies. Data from the survey, (72% response rate), established a computer and web enablement baseline against which the success, failure, or potential usefulness of any future medical informatics implementation would be evaluated. Findings included: 1. Computer and web enablement within the organization is not ubiquitous. Access is high, use is low; 2. Practitioner status, practice location, and gender affect enablement. Non-MDs, CGP-based practitioners, and female practitioners report lowest access and use. 3. No differences were reported specific to home access to computers and use of e-mail. 4. Hospital-based practitioners report greater access and use. CGP-based practitioners report greater perceived needs for teletechnologies.(cont.) 5. Hospital-based and CGP-based male MDs emerge as the most polarized subgroups due to differences in computer and web use and perceived needs. 6. Female practitioners are more successful than male practitioners securing tech support at home and at work. 7. With regard to technology uptake, female MDs constitute a more homogeneous group than male MDs. Also, four products emerged from the Telemedicine Needs Assessment: 1. a needs assessment theory and methodology derived from Process Architecture which promulgates that discussions specific to the end users' work must always be inextricably linked with their work practice; 2. a typology of barriers to the integration of computer and web-based technologies into healthcare delivery stratified by practitioner, administration, organization, and industry; 3. a framework which defines and integrates real and virtual healthcare delivery services, products, and technologies, and finally; 4. a systems-based model of clinical and telecommunications integrated delivery networks providing IS, IT, and administrative infrastructure support for the framework.by Verlé Margaret Harrop.Ph.D