A Literature Review and Case Study of Teledermatology

I conducted a literature review on telemedicine, and more specifically, teledermatology. This covered everything from teledermatology's history and modalities, to the reliability, and accuracy across all skin types.
Our group then conducted a retrospective, descriptive analysis of the teledermatology program at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG) in San Francisco, California. We assessed patient access to dermatology services at ZSFG as well as the difference in costs to ZSFG’s dermatology department for dermatology services at ZSFG before and after the implementation of the teledermatology referral system.
Our study suggests that implementation of teledermatology in capitated healthcare systems may improve patient access and clinical efficiency at a reasonable cost. Our findings may be generalizable to both academic and non-academic settings, as well as to healthcare settings that are strained in providing specialty services to their patients, such as safety-net hospitals and rural areas with low provider-to-patient ratios. Areas of future investigation include studying the absolute financial costs of teledermatology implementation and sustainment, as well as patient and primary care provider satisfaction and quality of care when dermatology is provided through a virtual system.