Experience with the implementation of a web-based teledermatology system in a nursing home in Singapore

Abstract

We introduced a web-based teledermatology system, the distributed personal health information management system (DPHIMS), into a nursing home in Singapore. The introduction was conducted in two phases. Five staff nurses in Phase 1 and nine nurse aides in Phase 2 performed the data entry and uploaded digital images of the resident's skin condition. By the end of Phase 2, there were 50 residents registered with DPHIMS. The average age of the participants was 82 years and 84% were women. There were 31 first-time referral requests registered in the system during Phase 2. The average time taken to complete a referral request was 86 minutes. The average time taken by the dermatologist to prepare and submit a diagnosis/treatment report was 11 minutes. An online survey form was given to the nurses and the dermatologists to gauge their level of satisfaction and their experience of using DPHIMS. All the nurses said they would readily recommend DPHIMS to other nurses. Overall, the dermatologists felt that DPHIMS was helpful in obtaining specialist care for the residents. However, some skin conditions required a face-to-face consultation. Thus a mixture of face-to-face consultations and consultations via teledermatology may be necessary to provide complete diagnosis and treatment to patients. Our experience suggests that understanding and addressing the organizational concerns is as important as solving the technical problems.