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How can teleneurology improve patient care?

Nature Clinical Practice Neurology volume 2, pages 346–347 (2006)Cite this article

Telemedicine uses modern communication technology to enable a medical consultation to take place when doctor and patient are in different places, and even different time zones. Over the past 20 years, telemedicine has been promoted as an important change in the way that medicine is practiced, because of its potential to make medical care both more efficient and more equitable in terms of access. Neurology was slow to adopt telemedicine in comparison with specialties such as radiology, psychiatry and dermatology, but interest has increased in the past few years. It is timely, therefore, to ask whether teleneurology will last the course to become an integral part of the neurological practice of the 21st century.

The use of modern communication to deal with a patient who is at a different location to the doctor is nothing new—neurologists have done this for many years using the telephone. Interestingly, although this approach is firmly embedded in the day-to-day practice of almost all neurologists, there is no evidence base to indicate that it is safe, effective or cost-effective. Although used much less frequently, email and videoconferencing, which provide the thrust of modern teleneurology, are providing some of the evidence base lacking with the telephone-based approach. Email essentially replaces the letter, and a video link is an improvement on the telephone, allowing neurologists to take a history and watch an examination being performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. consultant neurologist at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, UK

    Victor Patterson

  2. Head of Research at the Centre for Online Health at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia

    Richard Wootton

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  1. Victor Patterson
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  2. Richard Wootton
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Correspondence to Victor Patterson.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Patterson, V., Wootton, R. How can teleneurology improve patient care?. Nat Rev Neurol 2, 346–347 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneuro0219

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