Telemedical wound care using a new generation of mobile telephones: a feasibility study.
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Date
2005-02-22
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Leg ulcers are an important cost factor in health care systems It has been shown that a telemedical wound care consultation can improve quality of care and help reduce costs In this study we evaluated the feasibility of telemedical wound care using a new generation of mobile telephones with integrated cameras OBSERVATIONS Three physicians separately evaluated 61 leg ulcers for the following 9 variables epithelialization fibrin necrosis and granulation tissue at the center and normal border erythema cyanosis eczema and hyperpigmentation at the periphery One physician performed the face to face consultation gold standard and 2 others performed the remote evaluation The image was obtained with the mobile telephone and immediately sent via e mail To measure the agreement of the evaluation among the 3 physicians we used Cohen kappa statistics Overall the agreement between the remote and face to face evaluations was very good with kappa values of up to 0 94 The image quality was judged to be good in 36 cases 59 and very good in 12 20 The participants felt comfortable making a diagnosis based on the pictures in 50 cases 82 CONCLUSION Although this study was performed with the first generation of these devices we were able to demonstrate the feasibility of such a telemedical wound care consultation