Abstract

ROLLON GONZALEZ, M. Victoria; PENA GUTIERREZ, Olga de la  and  MEIER DE TABOADA, Christian. Teledermatology and Ocupational Health. Med. segur. trab. [online]. 2014, vol.60, n.234, pp.161-178. ISSN 1989-7790.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S0465-546X2014000100013.

Introduction: The importance and impact of telemedicine has caused to be applied to all possible areas and the types of telemedicine have grown in parallel to the development of new technologies. The dermatology was one of the first specialties to adopt the telemedicine. The skin diseases pose a very important issue within the occupational pathology. So applying the teledermatology at workplace level could help to perform better and earlier diagnosis, at the same time that could have a significant impact on economic cost savings. Objective: Knowing the current state of the evidence in Teledermatology and its potential translation to the field of Occupational Medicine, and to identify existing knowledge and evidence on the following critical issues that set the potential interest of this translation: Diagnostic Accuracy; Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness; Acceptability and patient satisfaction; Professional satisfaction; Reduction of time for diagnosis. Material and Methods: A literature review of the scientific literature published between 2006-2013 was performed. The MEDLINE, OSH UPDATE, IBSST, CISDOC, LILACS, WOK, ClinicalKey, SciELO, SCOPUS, OVIDSP, IBECS and Cochrane Library were searched. Results: 13 items including 2 systematic reviews, 6 clinical trials, and 5 cross-sectional studies were selected. The results show that Teledermatology has a diagnostic accuracy comparable to conventional query, this being between 5% -11% more accurate. Results also show that Teledermatology is cost-effective (1.78 times cheaper) when you consider displacement and loss of productivity, and decreasing average waiting time for consultancy. Conclusions: There are few references on Teledermatology applied to the workplace. Given the evidence collected on diagnostic accuracy, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, satisfaction, and reduced waiting times, this could be a useful tool for the Occupational Health because it would allow access to a specialized service providing early diagnosis and treatment, promoting the adoption of preventive measures, improving monitoring, and avoiding prolonged absences from work, due to consultation times or to prolonged labor incapacity while the occupational disease is examined.

Keywords : telemedicine; occupational health; teledermatology; cost-efficiency.

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