Teleconsultations were performed between a hearth centre in a small Finnish
town and a university hospital 55 km away. Telemedicine consultations were
carried out with a total of 42 patients suffering from various eye and ski
n disorders. We evaluated the costs of the teleconsultations in the health
centre and the conventional alternative of the patient travelling to the ho
spital. The cost of conventional consultations, which was not affected by t
he patient workload, was EU126 per patient for ophthalmology and EU143 per
patient for dermatology. The cost of the teleconsultations per patient decr
eased as the number of patients increased. There were cost savings in relat
ion to teleconsultations when the annual numbers of patients were more than
110 in ophthalmology and 92 in dermatology. Benefits and savings achieved
through teleconsultations mainly consisted of reduced transportation costs
and reduced paperwork both at the health centre and at the university hospi
tal, as well as time savings for the patient. Another important benefit was
improved medical education. The present study shows that teleconsultations
can be performed in a cost-effective way in a relatively small health cent
re.