WhatsApp: a telemedicine platform for facilitating remote oral medicine consultation and improving clinical examinations

Abstract

Objective: Increased use of smartphone and related software applications has created a new era in clinical data exchange among patients and clinicians. This study describes use of the smartphone-based application WhatsApp to share clinical oral medicine information.

Study design: Clinical images and related questions were submitted by general dentists, physicians, dental hygienists, and patients to the authors via WhatsApp. For each submission, a clinical impression was made and categorized as traumatic, infective, neoplastic, autoimmune, or unclassified. Submissions were summarized by sender type, number of photographs per sender, and category of question. Patients were invited to undergo a clinical examination with biopsy, when indicated. The telemedicine impression was compared to the clinicopathologic diagnosis.

Results: Three hundred and thirty-nine images were received for 96 patients; 92 (95.8%) patients underwent clinicopathologic examination, and 45 (49%) received a biopsy. General dentists (62%) and dental hygienists (26%) were the most frequent senders. The most common question was related to diagnosis (56%). The telemedicine impression agreed with the clinicopathologic assessment for 82% of cases.

Conclusions: Telemedicine applications, such as WhatsApp, can support communication about oral conditions among clinicians and patients. Telemedicine consultation reduced geographic barriers to initial clinical consultation and encouraged the significant majority of patients to pursue expert clinical examination.