Teledermatology Mobile Apps: Implementation and Impact on Veterans' Access to Dermatology

Access to healthcare is a key priority for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The current practice of teledermatology in VA is effective but has not been uniformly implemented. Once patients establish care in a dermatology clinic, they often need follow-up visits to evaluate responses to treatment and to adjust management, neither of which necessarily requires a face-to-face visit. To improve clinic access to in-person dermatology clinics, VA Office of Connected Care developed a patient-facing mobile app, My VA Images, to be used in conjunction with the clinician-facing Patient Viewer app, to allow established dermatology clinic patients to follow-up remotely by submitting digital skin images and interval history. The mobile apps were planned for wide-spread implementation in the VA. The investigators conducted a trial of database review to understand how these two apps affected features of dermatology care, specifically related to access to care.

The apps were made available over a 1 year and 4 month period in a cluster randomized, stepped-wedge design to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. The direct-to-patient facing apps were distributed to 31 facilities with dermatology clinics that had recent relatively high teledermatology activity and thus already had relatively mature teledermatology programs ready for advanced operations.

By using a stop code unique to this process, the investigators planned to use the VA Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) to measure effectiveness of the apps on all outcomes reflecting dermatology access. Due to an unexpectedly small sample size resulting from poor adoption of the intervention, in part during the COVID-19 pandemic, analysis using the cluster-randomized stepped wedge design evaluation was not warranted. Instead, we focused on understanding factors associated with successful completion of consults with the mobile apps, examining differences between rural and urban Veteran users. The results are of significance to VA as it develops and implements other mobile telehealth programs, and more generally to other healthcare organizations planning for large-scale telehealth interventions.

The planned study originally also included a parallel trial to evaluate another teledermatology mobile app, VA Telederm, designed to facilitate adoption of consultative teledermatology and enhance overall access to dermatology opinion in VA. Unforeseen changes in the app hosting environment imposed by VA Office of Information and Technology early in the study and not under the control of the PI or the operational partner, Office of Connected Care (OCC), rendered the app non-functional, and the trial was no longer feasible within this study's funding timeline were not under the control of the PI or the operational partner, Office of Connected Care (OCC). Organizational readiness for change for the VA Telederm app was measured.