Emergency Telemedicine in Eye Care

30.5 Conclusions and Suggestions

In this chapter we have (1) provided a state-of-the-art review on telemedicine applications in eye care with emphasis on emergency case management, (2) discussed the corresponding technologies, and (3) proposed an emergency teleophthalmology system, based on experience from other emergency telemedicine applications. The benefits of teleophthalmology for patients include (1) speed and accuracy of eye disease diagnosis, (2) avoidance of unnecessary transportation (and therefore low cost/high quality eye care services), and (3) efficient handling of emergency incidents. This is important for countries with dispersed populations in isolated areas (such as Greece, Sweden, Australia, etc.), where there are many regions where it is difficult to access medical services, and where there is unequal demographic distribution. Thus emergency teleophthalmology may be considered as an essential service.

The requirements of an emergency teleophthalmology ystem, as discussed above, are mobility, user friendliness, minimum user technical involvement, and secure operation and reliability. However, it remains necessary for such systems to be tested by expert ophthalmologists and relevant medical personnel in order to assess not only user acceptance and satisfaction, but also the impact on the quality of the provided eye care services, along with health economics. Also of significant importance are issues related to organization of such services, training, and the legal and ethical issues linked to telemedicine applications. The fact, however, that emergency telemedicine has proved very successful in other health care areas is very promising for the ophthalmic care areas.