Neurological teleconsultation for general practitioners

A neurology teleconsulting network was implemented between a university hos pital in Lisbon and five nearby health centres. PCs equipped for videoconfe rencing were installed, connected by ISDN lines at 128 kbit/s. Fifty-three general practitioners (GPs) were surveyed. The survey showed that the GPs h ad difficulties in using computers, but they had definite intentions to use teleconsultation for neurology cases and 83% of the respondents stated tha t they would probably use the technique. During the study, 90 neurology tel econsultations took place over 55 weeks. The average consultation rate was 1.6 teleconsultations per week (SD 1.3, range 0-6). The conferences lasted 10-45 min. Longer teleconsultations were mainly due to technical difficulti es in using computers on the part of users with a tow level of computer lit eracy. The patients were 42 males and 46 females, with a mean age of 38 yea rs (SD 20, range 1-84); two patients were discussed twice. The benefits con sisted mainly of advice on patient medication, diagnosis and the prevention of unnecessary specialist consultations or laboratory examinations. Doctor -doctor teleconsultation allows the rapid resolution of queries which other wise cause stress to patients and increase the cost and complexity of care.