Ou MH et al. 2008 "Evaluation of TELEDERM for dermatological services in rural and remote areas."
Reference
Ou MH, West GA, Lazarescu M, et al. Evaluation of TELEDERM for dermatological services in rural and remote areas. Artif Intell Med 2008;44(1):27-40.
Abstract
"Objective: This paper describes the Web-based decision support system (TELEDERM) that provides medical services to rural and remote general practitioners (GPs), and presents qualitative results on the usefulness and usability of the system obtained from trials in the GoldFields, Western Australia. Methods: Diagnostic methods and other functions were developed to assist medical practitioners, who may not be familiar with aspects of decision support systems, to diagnose patients with dermatological problems. GPs in rural and remote areas took part in a trial to assess the usefulness of TELEDERM in clinical situations. In evaluating and assessing a number of the system's characteristics, questionnaires, seminars and interviews were used. Results and conclusions: Feedback concerning the usefulness of TELEDERM shows that 67% of the GPs found the system useful or very useful, and 25% found the system somewhat useful. In terms of its usability, 83% found the system easy to use. The responses concerning the user interface and interactivity of TELEDERM are encouraging as 92% of the GPs found the text easy to read, 84% were happy with the appearance of the interface, and 84% found the system easy to navigate. 89% indicated that they are likely to use the system again. An issue with such systems is the reluctance of GPs to use them, even given that the development was quite sensitive to the needs of the GPs and the consultants, e.g. by streamlining the query process and emphasising that the system is a support tool and not a replacement."
Objective
To describe "the Web-based decision support system (TELEDERM) that provides medical services to rural and remote general practitioners (GPs), and to present qualitative results on the usefulness and usability of the system obtained from trials in the GoldFields, Western Australia."
Type Clinic
Primary care and specialty care
Size
Small, medium and large
Geography
Urban and rural
Type of Health IT
Telemedicine
Type of Health IT Functions
The system includes a Web-based decision support system based on case-based reasoning (CBR: a database of cases consisting of attributes and diagnoses, and a query system that has been trained to speed up the search through the database for diagnoses, given the patients attributes, and to enable the examination of similar cases) to offer increased functionality to the GPs and thus help in their diagnosis process. If a GP is not confident of a diagnosis while using the system, he can forward historical details of the patient to a consultant.
Workflow-Related Findings
"67% of the GPs found the system useful or very useful, and 25% found the system somewhat useful. In terms of its usability, 83% found the system easy to use. The responses concerning the user interface and interactivity of TELEDERM are encouraging as 92% of the GPs found the text easy to read, 84% were happy with the appearance of the interface, and 84% found the system easy to navigate. 89% indicated that they are likely to use the system again."
Study Design
Pre-postintervention (no control group)
Study Participants
"The response rate for the questionnaires was low [as] only 13 of the 53 GPs registered for the trial responded to questionnaire A (pre), and nine to questionnaire B (post)."