Survey on the status of teledermatology in Austria.
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BACKGROUND The use of digital communication media is becoming increasingly important with the primary aim of improving both treatment quality and patients quality of life In an effort to optimize telemedicine in the field of dermatology we conducted a survey among dermatologists in Austria METHODS Statistical analysis of a questionnaire that was developed by a working group and sent to 769 Austrian dermatologists RESULTS Overall 243 dermatologists 132 women 111 men participated in the survey Forty seven percent of male respondents and 55 of female respondents had already received requests for teledermatology consultations Seventy three percent felt that telemedicine was able to contribute to relieving the economic burden on the health care system Telecommunication between dermatologists and experts in a given field of dermatology was deemed to be particularly useful While telemedicine was also considered to be appropriate for patient follow up it was viewed to be less useful for initial consultations Roughly 50 of respondents used telemedicine to get a second opinion one third used it for initial consultations CONCLUSIONS Our survey shows that the majority of participants consider teledermatology to be a useful supplement to the current practice of dermatology Given its particular usefulness for triage purposes teledermatology can help reduce the number of trips to the hospital and subsequent waiting times This in turn leads to cost reduction and saves time for both patients and doctors Legal regulations that include provisions for appropriate reimbursement of physicians would make using teledermatology more attractive