Walgreens customers can now get dermatologists’ opinions on their bumps, lumps and red spots without leaving their homes.
The Deerfield-based drugstore chain announced Monday that it’s offering so-called teledermatology services — dermatological consultations done through technology.
Customers can create individual profiles on the new skin care section of the chain’s website. They can then privately upload photos of their skin conditions, receive answers to medical questions and potentially get diagnoses, prescriptions and/or recommendations for over-the-counter products from board-certified dermatologists, often within 24 hours.
Consultations will cost $59. Health care company Iagnosis’ DermatologistOnCall will provide the services through Walgreens.
Dermatologists and patients won’t generally talk live. Rather dermatologists often will make their diagnoses and recommendations via written messages after seeing a patient’s photos. But dermatologists also may call patients if a condition seems serious, said Dr. Harry Leider, Walgreens chief medical officer and group vice president. Or, depending on the condition, the dermatologist might recommend a patient visit a local dermatologist face-to-face and help set up that meeting, he said.
Leider said the service will give people better, quicker access to dermatologists, who can otherwise sometimes take weeks to see.
“Going to see a doctor for a simple problem like a rash or acne or eczema, to take half a day off from work or (if you’re) taking care of a child, is not convenient for a lot of people,” Leider said.
Teledermatology is a growing area of overall telemedicine — the remote delivery of health care services using technology, said Gary Capistrant, chief policy officer for the American Telemedicine Association, which advocates for telemedicine. Mark Seraly, Iagnosis’ founder and chief medical officer, is a leader of the association’s teledermatology group.
Some telemedicine also involves patients talking to doctors via live video or over the phone.
“We as consumers increasingly want on-demand,” Capistrant said. “You want to have access quickly to something and be able to start the treatment and not have to wait forever to get an appointment … when chances are, it’s probably a simple thing.”
Some, however, have raised concerns about the effectiveness of teledermatology.
Researchers posed as patients to test 16 teledermatology services, including DermatologistOnCall, for a study published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Dermatology. They found that major diagnoses repeatedly were missed, and prescribed treatments were sometimes at odds with existing guidelines.
The study didn’t break out results for each teledermatology service but said overall: “Telemedicine has potential to expand access to high-value health care. Our findings, however, raise concerns about the quality of skin disease diagnosis and treatment provided by many (direct-to-consumer) telemedicine websites.”
Dave Zynn, Iagnosis CEO, said the company already addresses many of the concerns voiced by the researchers. For example, its doctors may ask patients follow-up questions.
DermatologistOnCall also can send a patient’s primary care doctor a summary of the consultation, and the service uses clinical guidelines established by the American Academy of Dermatology, Leider said. Patients also can see dermatologists’ credentials and choose which doctors they’d like to consult.
“I think there are a lot of companies that don’t have those things in place,” Zynn said. “We want the industry as a whole to be well-respected.”
lschencker@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @lschencker
