Visual tests for measuring the picture quality of teleconsultations for medical purposes

Telemedicine provides a new way of delivering medical services. The good du ality of the picture is, however, essential for a proper and reliable telec onsultation. especially in the cases when visual information about the pati ent's physical condition is of great importance as in ophthalmology and der matology. Therefore real-time telemedical applications need standards for t hese procedures. e.g. minimum requirements for resolution: as well as contr ast and color discrimination. The present study was carried out to test the se parameters in a real environment. A panel of different resolution, contr ast sensitivity and color discrimination tests was carried out for five tes t persons via PictureTel videoconference system by ISDN 128 kbit/s line spe ed and in a normal way. The good color discrimination of the teleconsultati on system makes it possible to use the system in the evaluation of differen t skin lesions and exemas. However. the poor resolution and especially poor contrast sensitivity makes the use of the equipment valueless in the evalu ation of diseases where the diagnoses are based on the discrimination of sm all details, like the biomicroscopical analysis of inflammatory cells in th e aqua's humor in cases of intraocular inflammation. The authors are sugges ting a simple panel of tests to optimize and standardize these parameters. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.