Perspectives on Telemedicine for Neuro-Ophthalmology

Telemedicine is an emerging technology in which health care providers deliver remote care to patients using telecommunications. This has potential to improve accessibility, quality, and cost of ophthalmic care. This talk will review key types of telemedicine, along with potential benefits and challenges of implementation. We will discuss characteristics of diseases that are amenable to telemedicine diagnosis, and will summarize evaluation data on applications of telemedicine in an example disease: retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). This will include discussion of the diagnostic accuracy and reliability of remote image interpretation by experts, the cost-effectiveness of telemedicine, and potential barriers to implementation. General principles will be drawn from these specific examples.