What's New In Digital Health

Teledermoscopy services are quickly becoming a solution to many of healthcare’s growing problems, such as patient accessibility, pace of care, and costs. What are the next steps? Discover why dermatology EMR software are combining teledermoscopy services with artificial intelligence for a new level of comprehensive care.

Studies suggest that as many as 71% of healthcare providers already utilize a form of telemedicine services. Although relatively new, the most popular type, teledermatology (telemedicine for dermatology) has received widely popular feedback for its ability to:

• Decrease in-clinic visits by up to 40%¹
• Reduce patient wait times
• Support under-served populations
• Lower patient costs

How Can Teledermoscopy Support Patients?
Much like in-clinic visits, the diagnostic accuracy of teledermatology services greatly improves with the use of a dermoscope. This subset of teledermatology (known as teledermoscopy) is rapidly growing for its recognition of improving accuracy rates by as much as 15% (when compared to standard teledermatology services).²

Clearly, this demonstrates that medical professionals require access to high quality magnified images of the patient’s skin to provide quality care. Due to the fact that the field of dermatology involves the detailed viewing of a patient’s skin, it naturally follows that teledermoscopy services requires the same.

Artificial Intelligence: Utilizing Dermoscopy Data
The implementation of teledermoscopy services provides a key opportunity for visionary dermatologists who are invested in improving their clinic workflows. Intelligent dermatology software such as DermEngine have developed tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to supporting the clinical decisions of medical professionals.

Only one example, Visual Search utilizes the data from thousands of pre-labelled pathology images to recognize the visual characteristics that identify a mole from a more harmful spot, such as melanoma. Learning from this data, Visual Search can analyze a dermoscopic image submitted by a medical professional and produce 20 of the most visually similar images along with statistics relating to risk of malignancy and diagnoses of those previous cases.

As a result, dermatologists and other medical professionals gain valuable insights into their patient’s cases for supported clinical decisions through evidence-based results. This works harmoniously with teledermoscopy services, as it allows dermatologists to quickly receive, document, and analyze images in a centralized location for maximized workflow efficiency. This is especially valuable for primary care physicians who require additional educational tools to support their confidence. Consequently, a dermatology clinic could be optimized with the following layout:

1. A patient submits a dermoscopic image via teledermoscopy patient portal
2. The dermatologist instantly receives the case and associated images
3. They submit the images to Visual Search and receive immediate analytics
4. The dermatologist utilizes the information to make an informed clinical decision
5. The patient receives feedback on their case

Results
In addition to the core benefits of enhanced workflows and accessible care, the partnership of artificial intelligence in dermatology with teledermoscopy services allows medical experts to take advantage of valuable insights essential for quality diagnosis. By utilizing intelligent dermatology software, physicians and dermatologists alike are empowered with real-world statistics to support their decisions for better-informed care and the potential to save lives.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24923283
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK49161/