Consultation time in email-based,store-and-forward telemedicine

Abstract

We compared the consultation time for two different email-based counselling applications. Counsellors from a national service recorded consultation time for 17,309 teleconsultations during a 20–month period ending in March 2005. During the study period, the counselling service initially operated with an ordinary email application and later with a purpose-written email application. While using the ordinary email system the mean consultation time was 24.0 min (n=8266, SD 14.6) and while using the purpose-written email application the mean consultation time was 23.2 min (n=9041, SD 14.9). The mean observed difference in consultation time was 49 s (95% confidence interval 0.3–1.2 min). Although use of the purpose-written email application was significantly faster, it did not increase the number of teleconsultations that a counsellor could perform in a day.