Knowledge and acceptance of telemedicine in surgery: a survey

A questionnaire was sent to the chief surgeons at 141 Swiss hospitals to ev aluate their knowledge and acceptance of telemedicine in surgery. The respo nse rate was 69%. Ninety-three per cent of all surgical departments used co mputer technology, 85% regularly used the Web and 88% had an internal hospi tal network. ISDN lines were used in 58% of the participants' hospitals. Wh ile 35% of respondents had participated at least once in networking, only 8 % regularly used telemedicine. The opinion was that access to therapeutic a dvice (87%) was a better use of telemedicine than was obtaining a primary d iagnosis (24%), although the majority accepted the principle of making (91% ) and receiving (94%) a remote diagnosis. The survey suggested that surgeon s are interested in telemedicine and open to its development, although thei r experience and knowledge are limited. Therefore, telemedicine in surgery may be advanced by creating surgical networks for teleconsultation and tele -education.