A prospective study of teleconferencing for orthopaedic consultations

We carried out a prospective study of teleconsulting in orthopaedics. A com mercial videoconferencing system was connected by three ISDN lines between the Satakunta Central Hospital in Pori and the Orton Orthopaedic Hospital i n Helsinki, 240 km away. A document camera was used to transfer radiographi c images and paper documents. Twenty-nine patients who needed an orthopaedi c consultation were studied over three months. They were examined by a surg eon in Pori with the aid of teleconferencing and again later in a tradition al, face-to-face appointment in Helsinki. Patients and doctors completed qu estionnaires after the consultations. Technically, the videoconferencing sy stem functioned reliably and the quality of the video was judged to be good . Twenty patients (69%) would not have needed to travel for a face-to-face appointment, because the teleconsultation afforded a definite treatment dec ision. The orthopaedic surgeons considered all the treatment decisions aris ing from the teleconsultation good, except in one case which was considered satisfactory. The quality of the radiographic images transferred with the document camera was good or very good in 17 cases and satisfactory in three cases. None of the patients had experienced videoconferencing before; 87% of them thought that teleconsultation was a good or very good method and th e rest felt that it was satisfactory. All patients wanted to participate in teleconsultations again and most would have recommended it to other patien ts.