The platform onlinedoctor.at, Europe’s leading provider of teledermatology, recently started operating in Austria.
After entering the market in Switzerland and Germany, the platform now also offers dermatologists online consultations in the Alpine Republic on the basis of photos.
People seeking advice will be given an evaluation within a maximum of 48 hours. The current rate of successfully handled cases by OnlineDoctor is 86%, and a local appointment is only required for 14% of the patients. “Due to the coronavirus, both patients as well as doctors are much more open to telemedicine“, states Dr Philipp Freitag, Managing Director of OnlineDoctor Austria. More than 20% of the Swiss and 10% of the German dermatologists already make use of this eHealth service.
OnlineDoctor is the leading teledermatology platform in the DACH region. Patients can have skin problems professionally evaluated by a specialist for skin and sexually transmitted diseases within 48 hours on the basis of photos and other information which is conveyed. More than 600 dermatologists already use OnlineDoctor everyday in Switzerland, Germany and now also in Austria since September.
About 4% of the medical specialists in Austria are dermatologists. Dermatology is one of the specialized areas particularly suited for an asynchronous consultation. The patient and the doctor do not have to be at the same place at the same time. This is because many skin diseases can be identified by a visual diagnosis. Moreover, smart phones are equipped with good cameras and thus ensure the immediate availability of photos.
“In connection with a description of the symptoms, photos provide an extremely high degree of meaningful information in most cases. In this way, patients do not have to go through a time-consuming visit to a doctor’s surgery or hospital clinic, and relief is provided to the overburdened healthcare system“, explains Rainer Hügel, Medical Advisor of OnlineDoctor Austria.