@Article{info:doi/10.2196/36887,
author="Greis, Christian
and Otten, Marina
and Reinders, Patrick",
title="Teledermatology in German-Speaking Countries: Patients' and Physicians' Perspectives",
journal="iproc",
year="2022",
month="Feb",
day="24",
volume="8",
number="1",
pages="e36887",
keywords="teledermatology; telemedicine; COVID-19; pandemic; store-and-forward; synchronous; asynchronous",
abstract="Background: With increasing digitalization and the current pandemic, teledermatology has gained importance in German-speaking countries in recent years. The regulation on remote consultation methods was recently relaxed, allowing for a more widespread introduction of teledermatological health care services. Objective: The aim of this work is to evaluate a store-and-forward (SAF) teledermatology application from the patients' and physicians' perspectives. Methods: We carried out a noncontrolled user survey of the web-based platform derma2go in the course of the remote consultation by German dermatologists. Through the platform, patients with dermatological requests could obtain expert advice within a few hours after entering their medical history and uploading photographs of their skin lesions. Results: A total of 1476 (t1) and 361 (t2) patients and 2207 dermatologist ratings were included within the evaluation. A large proportion of participants were satisfied with the application (t1=83.9{\%}; t2=81.2{\%}). Most participants also rated the usability as high (t1=83.0{\%} satisfied) and were satisfied with the response time of the dermatologists (t1=92.0{\%} satisfied). In addition, a large majority agreed with the statement that they trusted the web-based application (t1=90.5{\%}). At t2, 20.0{\%} of those who participated stated that their skin problem had healed; for 49.8{\%} of participants, it had already improved; for 22.0{\%} of participants, it was unchanged; and for 3.5{\%} of participants, skin problems had worsened. For 64.0{\%} of users, the request was completely resolved, and for 24.2{\%} or users, it was partly resolved as result of the consultation. For 79.7{\%} of users, no additional information was needed by the participating dermatologists. From the practitioners' perspective, 71.2{\%} of all requests were completely resolved and 24.7{\%} were partly resolved. Conclusions: Our evaluation has shown that SAF applications, exemplified by derma2go, are likely to improve access to dermatological care, with a high patient satisfaction and a high rate of resolved requests, from the patients' and physicians' perspectives. In the future, teledermatological SAF applications can represent a supplement to the existing routine care in dermatology. The indications, patient groups, and use cases, for which the application is particularly suitable, will be determined in further studies. ",
issn="2369-6893",
doi="10.2196/36887",
url="https://www.iproc.org/2022/1/e36887",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/36887"
}