Every year, more than half of the UK population is affected by skin disease and a nearly a quarter of these have a condition that would benefit from medical care.
Concerns about skin conditions are responsible for three million outpatient consultations every year.
Challenge:
Inhealthcare developed the teledermatology service with doctors to overcome the following challenges:
- Often GPs would take an image using their own camera, transfer this to their computer and complete an electronic referral using NHS e-Referral Service.
- Sometimes GPs would use messaging services such as WhatsApp to save time sending images to specialist dermatologists.
- The use of personal smartphones and messaging services meant images would often be transferred to external cloud providers.
- Commissioners wanted to speed up the process of referral from GP to specialist.
Solution:
The Inhealthcare teledermatology solution provides a quick and secure way for images and information to be shared between family doctors and hospital dermatologists.
A digital referral form allows GPs to capture patient demographics, referral information and images.
The app sends the form to the Inhealthcare platform, where it is viewable by dermatologists . A copy of the form is also sent to the GP and attached to the patient record. The form is securely deleted from the app.
On average, the process takes just eight minutes to complete.
Outcomes:
Feedback from a pilot project in London showed the service increased productivity and improved patient access to care, diagnostics and treatments.
- 53% 8 Of cases saved 1 or more appointments (72% of these required a dermatoscope).
- 8 Minutes to process each case.
- 28% of patients immediately discharged with advice and no clinic appointment.