Introduction

“What evidence do you have that teledermatology is effective?” is a question that may be posed by an administrator when asked to support a teledermatology program. This chapter provides some answers to that likely query by reviewing the current status of teledermatology research. Teledermatology is one of the best-studied fields of telemedicine. Research has been conducted on diagnostic reliability and accuracy, management outcomes, clinical outcomes, satisfaction assessments, and economic analyses. Using these research categories, this chapter concisely summarizes the status of teledermatology research. Although this summary is not a critique of research methodology, only those studies that are of sufficient quality to arrive at reasonable conclusions are included. These conclusions will be reported in a summary statement at the end of each section. Despite the relatively large number of studies that address teledermatology, the body of teledermatology research is far from complete. Therefore, this chapter concludes with a description of directions for future research.

For those readers less familiar with research terminology, the following is a description of the terms that will be used throughout this chapter. For those interested, further information can be found in textbooks by Sackett et al. and Fletcher et al. and in a previously published review.

When research is conducted on a new diagnostic modality (teledermatology) compared to a conventional modality (clinic-based examination), two diagnostic features are typically described, namely diagnostic reliability and diagnostic accuracy.