Teledermatology Solution Through Mobile Phone in Rural Mongolia

NCT02193854 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: TaipeiMU
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 441
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Objective This study is aimed to estimate the distance, time and the cost of travel saved by patients who are seeking tele-dermatology (TD) service though smart mobile phones in the resource poor settings at the rural clinics of Mongolia. Methods A cluster-randomised trial was conducted for six months at the 20 rural health clinics selected from three districts in Mongolia. With a computer-generated sequence, health clinics were randomly allocated either to the intervention group, in which all general practitioners (GPs) received TD consultation through Sana system, or the control group, in which GPs referred patients to the dermatologist at district hospital whenever needed. The primary outcome was to estimate the distance traveled, times spend and the cost of travel required in receiving dermal care for patients in rural Mongolia. Analysis was done to estimate the difference between the aforementioned parameters among intervention and control groups.

Conditions

Social Distance

Keywords

Telemedicine; Mobile phone; Rural physicians; Mongolia

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Comparison between the number of referrals in the control and intervention groups

  Outcome measures are the number of referrals done in the control and in the intervention groups. We compared the difference in the number of referrals with Sana system and without.

  up to 5 months

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Satisfaction by physicians and patients by questionnaire

  up to 5 months

Study Arms (1)

Mobile phone

EXPERIMENTAL

General practitioners (GPs) received TD consultation through Sana system. Mobile phones with Sana system installed were provided to 10 rural GPs from three different districts of Mongolia.

Device: Mobile Phone

Interventions

Mobile Phone DEVICE

Investigators used Sana system, that is a mobile phone-based, open source software platform for telemedicine services. The Android-based system supports multimedia, location-based data, and text. In the village health clinic, a healthcare worker will interact with a patient and collects data through a step-by-step clinical questionnaire on a smart mobile phone. As patients' data is uploaded to an open source electronic medical record system (OpenMRS) with a diagnosis-specific information and images. The consultant can access the clinical information about the patient and make appropriate diagnoses and treatment recommendations from the secondary hospital.

Mobile phone

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Patients aged 18-98 years visiting with dermal problem.

You may not qualify if:

• Patients who do not need dermal care.
• Patients who are already under treatment for dermal problem.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Taipei Medical University: lead
• Health Science University of Mongolia: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Shabbir Syed Abdul

Taipei, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan

Location

Related Links

• International Center for Health Information Technologies

Study Officials

• Yu-Chuan Li, MD., PhD.

  Taipei Medical University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 9, 2014
• First Posted: July 18, 2014
• Study Start: September 1, 2013
• Primary Completion: January 1, 2014
• Study Completion: January 1, 2014
• Last Updated: July 18, 2014

Record last verified: 2014-07

Locations

TW (1)