Teledermatology Solution Through Mobile Phone in Rural Mongolia

July 16, 2014 updated by: Taipei Medical University

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.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The 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.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

441

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Taiwan
      • Taipei, Taiwan, 11031
        • Shabbir Syed Abdul

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

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

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mobile phone

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
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.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Comparison between the number of referrals in the control and intervention groups
Time Frame: up to 5 months
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 Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Satisfaction by physicians and patients by questionnaire
Time Frame: up to 5 months
Both physicians and patients who were in the intervention group were satisfied by the Sana system.
up to 5 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Taipei Medical University

Collaborators

Health Science University of Mongolia

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Yu-Chuan Li, MD., PhD., Taipei Medical University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2013

Primary Completion (Actual)

January 1, 2014

Study Completion (Actual)

January 1, 2014

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 9, 2014

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 16, 2014

First Posted (Estimate)

July 18, 2014

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

July 18, 2014

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 16, 2014

Last Verified

July 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • TaipeiMU

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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