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Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review
BACKGROUND: Store-and-forward (SAF) teledermatology uses electronically stored information, including patient photographs and demographic information, for clinical decision-making asynchronous to the patient encounter. The integration of SAF teledermatology into clinical practice has been increasing...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9302578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891983 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/37517 |
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author | Jiang, Simon W Flynn, Michael Seth Kwock, Jeffery T Nicholas, Matilda W |
author_facet | Jiang, Simon W Flynn, Michael Seth Kwock, Jeffery T Nicholas, Matilda W |
author_sort | Jiang, Simon W |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Store-and-forward (SAF) teledermatology uses electronically stored information, including patient photographs and demographic information, for clinical decision-making asynchronous to the patient encounter. The integration of SAF teledermatology into clinical practice has been increasing in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this growth, data regarding the outcomes of SAF teledermatology are limited. A key distinction among current literature involves comparing the quality and utility of images obtained by patients and trained clinicians, as these metrics may vary by the clinical expertise of the photographer. OBJECTIVE: This narrative literature review aimed to characterize the outcomes of SAF teledermatology through the lens of patient- versus clinician-initiated photography and highlight important future directions for and challenges of the field. METHODS: A literature search of peer-reviewed research was performed between February and April 2021. Key search terms included patient-initiated, patient-submitted, clinician-initiated, clinician-submitted, store-and-forward, asynchronous, remote, image, photograph, and teledermatology. Only studies published after 2001 in English were included. In total, 47 studies were identified from the PubMed electronic database and Google Scholar after omitting duplicate articles. RESULTS: Image quality and diagnostic concordance are generally lower and more variable with patient-submitted images, which may impact their decision-making utility. SAF teledermatology can improve the efficiency of and access to care when photographs are taken by either clinicians or patients. The clinical outcomes of clinician-submitted images are comparable to those of in-person visits in the few studies that have investigated these outcomes. Coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, asynchronous teledermatology helped minimize unnecessary in-person visits in the outpatient setting, as many uncomplicated conditions could be adequately managed remotely via images captured by patients and referring clinicians. For the inpatient setting, SAF teledermatology minimized unnecessary contact during dermatology consultations, although current studies are limited by the heterogeneity of their outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: In general, photographs taken by trained clinicians are higher quality and have better and more relevant diagnostic and clinical outcomes. SAF teledermatology helped clinicians avoid unnecessary physical contact with patients in the outpatient and inpatient settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asynchronous teledermatology will likely play a greater role in the future as SAF images become integrated into synchronous teledermatology workflows. However, the obstacles summarized in this review should be addressed before its widespread implementation into clinical practice. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9302578 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93025782022-07-22 Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review Jiang, Simon W Flynn, Michael Seth Kwock, Jeffery T Nicholas, Matilda W JMIR Dermatol Review BACKGROUND: Store-and-forward (SAF) teledermatology uses electronically stored information, including patient photographs and demographic information, for clinical decision-making asynchronous to the patient encounter. The integration of SAF teledermatology into clinical practice has been increasing in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this growth, data regarding the outcomes of SAF teledermatology are limited. A key distinction among current literature involves comparing the quality and utility of images obtained by patients and trained clinicians, as these metrics may vary by the clinical expertise of the photographer. OBJECTIVE: This narrative literature review aimed to characterize the outcomes of SAF teledermatology through the lens of patient- versus clinician-initiated photography and highlight important future directions for and challenges of the field. METHODS: A literature search of peer-reviewed research was performed between February and April 2021. Key search terms included patient-initiated, patient-submitted, clinician-initiated, clinician-submitted, store-and-forward, asynchronous, remote, image, photograph, and teledermatology. Only studies published after 2001 in English were included. In total, 47 studies were identified from the PubMed electronic database and Google Scholar after omitting duplicate articles. RESULTS: Image quality and diagnostic concordance are generally lower and more variable with patient-submitted images, which may impact their decision-making utility. SAF teledermatology can improve the efficiency of and access to care when photographs are taken by either clinicians or patients. The clinical outcomes of clinician-submitted images are comparable to those of in-person visits in the few studies that have investigated these outcomes. Coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, asynchronous teledermatology helped minimize unnecessary in-person visits in the outpatient setting, as many uncomplicated conditions could be adequately managed remotely via images captured by patients and referring clinicians. For the inpatient setting, SAF teledermatology minimized unnecessary contact during dermatology consultations, although current studies are limited by the heterogeneity of their outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: In general, photographs taken by trained clinicians are higher quality and have better and more relevant diagnostic and clinical outcomes. SAF teledermatology helped clinicians avoid unnecessary physical contact with patients in the outpatient and inpatient settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asynchronous teledermatology will likely play a greater role in the future as SAF images become integrated into synchronous teledermatology workflows. However, the obstacles summarized in this review should be addressed before its widespread implementation into clinical practice. JMIR Publications 2022-07-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9302578/ /pubmed/35891983 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/37517 Text en ©Simon W Jiang, Michael Seth Flynn, Jeffery T Kwock, Matilda W Nicholas. Originally published in JMIR Dermatology (http://derma.jmir.org), 18.07.2022. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Dermatology Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://derma.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Review Jiang, Simon W Flynn, Michael Seth Kwock, Jeffery T Nicholas, Matilda W Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title | Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title_full | Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title_fullStr | Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title_full_unstemmed | Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title_short | Store-and-Forward Images in Teledermatology: Narrative Literature Review |
title_sort | store-and-forward images in teledermatology: narrative literature review |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9302578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35891983 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/37517 |
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