TELEDERMATOLOGY
Telemedicine is about application of information and communication technologies to make healthcare available to remote and off-site places. Dermatology is the best clinical specialty in the use of communications technology because of its inherently visual nature in both diagnosis and follow-up, which makes it easily applicable to virtual medicine. Teledermatology has great potential for revolutionizing the delivery of dermatologic services by means of telecommunications and information technology. It encompasses consultations between a patient (and the primary healthcare provider) and a dermatologist for diagnosis and management advice. Teleconsultations would reduce time and increase the chances of access to one or more consultants as the patient or referring doctor desires, irrespective of the distance between the two. All that is needed are some high resolution pictures of the lesion in natural light with detailed information about the duration, severity, periodicity and distribution of symptoms.