Concordance among presential diagnosis and telediagnosis in dermatological patients

Abstract

Background: telemedicine is a modality of medical practice advancing as fast as telecommunications technology. Remote dermatologic care, teledermatology, is one of the specialities with higher possibilities since the visual perception of dermatologic diseases is a key diagnostic tool. Several aspects explain why teledermatology would have a huge potential in countries like ours. Of the many queries derived from this form of medical care there is one about reliability.

Aim: to measure the diagnostic concordance between a consultation with a live dermatologist and a teledermatologist independently diagnosing through the Internet.

Design: descriptive study of a diagnositic trial of interobserver concordance.

Setting: Hosptital Universitario de la Cruz Roja and Centro de Salud ASSBASALUD of La Asunción, Manizales, Colombia.

Patients: 115 patients with 126 dermatologie conditions were selected.

Main outcome measure and results: an absolute diagnostic concordance was achieved in 90% of the cases.

Conclusions: this study establish the viability and reliability of a dermatological teleconsultation program.