Abstract
Purpose: :
We using a longitudinal cohort of patients from the Alberta ROP Telemedicine database to model the impact of a telemedicine system on the resources required to manage ROP evaluations.
Methods: :
Participants included a database of forty-four consecutive premature infant patients at risk for ROP from the Alberta Children’s Hospital and Foothills Medical Center in Calgary, AB, Canada. All participants had previously undergone dilated binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy (BIO); wide-field digital imaging of the fundus with image grading to evaluate the presence or absence of referral-warranted ROP (RW-ROP).
Results: :
Of the 233 ROP evaluation studies, 199 were performed prior to laser treatment and were included in the analysis. Using the proposed management algorithm, 147 (85%) of all pre-treatment "screening" evaluations could be appropriately performed using wide-field digital imaging(WFDI) and the remaining 15% of evaluations required expert BIO examinations.
Conclusions: :
WDFI with structured grading to reliably detect RW-ROP significantly reduces the number of BIO examinations to evaluate patients at risk for ROP.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: health care delivery/economics/manpower • retinopathy of prematurity