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.
How does our teledermatology service work?
The Inhealthcare platform provides a quick and secure way for images and information to be shared between family doctors and hospital dermatologists.
Our teledermatology service uses the Inhealthcare Professional app to send images of skin conditions into the patient record.
The clinician app allows GPs to take an image where it can be quickly uploaded safely and securely into EMIS or SystmOne. We can also integrate with hospital systems.
The use of the app means photos do not reside on the GP’s phone.
Case study: A London CCG
Feedback from the pilot project in London showed the service increased productivity and improved patient access to care, diagnostics and treatments.
Inhealthcare developed the service with doctors to overcome the following challenges:
• Often GPs would take an image using their own camera, transfer this to their computer and com-plete 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.
Inhealthcare delivered the following solutions:
• The Inhealthcare app introduced a digital referral form for GPs
• This 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
• The form is securely deleted from the app
• A copy of the form is sent to the GP and attached to the patient record.
Results
Feedback from the pilot project in London showed the service increased productivity and improved patient access to care, diagnostics and treatments.
Analysis of outcomes showed the service helped to discharge 38 per cent of patients with advice and without the need for a clinic appointment.
In addition, the service saved one or more appointments in 53 per cent of cases.
On average, the process takes just eight minutes to complete.
Read the full case study here.
