Literature DB >> 34016384

Simple Technique for Medical Photography in the Emergency Department During the COVID Pandemic-Say Cheese.

Subramanian Senthilkumaran1, S V Arathisenthil1, Ramachandran Meenakshisundaram1, Murugan Koushik1, Narendra Nath Jena2, Ponniah Thirumalaikolundusubramanian3.   

Abstract

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Year:  2021        PMID: 34016384      PMCID: PMC8128691          DOI: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2020.12.017

Source DB:  PubMed          Journal:  J Emerg Med        ISSN: 0736-4679            Impact factor:   1.484


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To the Editor: Illustrative medical photography is increasingly used in emergency departments to document medical problems for making decisions and future usage, as it provides greater details in addition to written medical notes. Moreover, it has become an integral part of clinical documentation, patient and family instructions, record keeping, medical education, research, journal publication, etc. It adds defense against claims of medical malpractice (1). A close-up photo is required for better documentation as well as sharing it for professional, academic, and administrative purposes. During this pandemic, social (physical) distancing has been practiced as a means to help slow down the spread of Coronavirus, which makes it difficult to take medical photographs. To overcome this difficulty, it is suggested to mount the smartphone onto a selfie stick and take photographs, as the stick is extendable to at least 1 meter of distance between the patient and the clinician (2). Using two hands on the stem of the stick, the phone can be maneuvered tactically to get the best angle and close-ups. Thus, the selfie stick assists in maintaining social distancing and prevents shaking and blurring of pictures without compromising patients’ comfort, dignity, and privacy, in accordance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliance (3). Hence, it was decided to find out the usefulness for medical photography of a selfie stick for smartphone. A pilot study was attempted. The first four authors were asked to take medical photography of their consecutive 25 emergency cases with injuries, independently during their duty, using the same brand of smartphone and selfie stick, during the month of October 2020, after obtaining a written informed consent from patients. Thus, a total of 100 pictures were documented. The pictures taken by one author were sent to two of the other three by the senior author—without identifying the person—for analysis of the image regarding sharpness, color reproduction, illumination, contrast, entropy, and noise metrics. If there was any controversy between the two, the decision of the senior author was sought. Overall, 92 of 100 photos exhibited a clearly identifiable content (“good quality”). Eight were considered unacceptable picture quality due to unintentional camera shaking or use of flash in a situation with a bright background. Although many expensive smartphones with high-resolution cameras can capture good-quality images from a distance, this technique gave an opportunity to take close-up pictures with economical phones (4). This small innovation helped to record high-quality pictures using a smartphone with selfie stick without fear during this pandemic. As the pictures were of good quality, it is likely that a selfie stick with smartphone may be a useful tool to those clinicians who don't have an expensive, high-resolution camera. With little training and stabilization of the selfie stick, pictures may be taken even in difficult circumstances. Because this method seems to be easy, reproducible, and affordable, students of health sciences may be taught on the usage of selfie stick with smartphone for medical photography, along with the legal and regulatory issues related to it (5).
  5 in total

1.  Clinicians taking pictures--a survey of current practice in emergency departments and proposed recommendations of best practice.

Authors:  P Bhangoo; I K Maconochie; N Batrick; E Henry
Journal:  Emerg Med J       Date:  2005-11       Impact factor: 2.740

2.  Medical photography with a mobile phone: useful techniques, and what neurosurgeons need to know about HIPAA compliance.

Authors:  Rebecca A Reynolds; Lawrence B Stack; Christopher M Bonfield
Journal:  J Neurosurg       Date:  2019-01-04       Impact factor: 5.115

Review 3.  Selfie Telemedicine - What Are the Legal and Regulatory Issues?

Authors:  Maurice Mars; Christopher Morris; Richard E Scott
Journal:  Stud Health Technol Inform       Date:  2018

4.  Use of selfie sticks and iPhones to record operative photos and videos in plastic surgery.

Authors:  Ashok Basur Chandrappa; Pradeep Kumar Nagaraj; Srikanth Vasudevan; Anantheswar Yelampalli Nagaraj; Krithika Jagadish; Ankit Shah
Journal:  Indian J Plast Surg       Date:  2017 Jan-Apr

5.  A Smartphone App for Improving Clinical Photography in Emergency Departments: Comparative Study.

Authors:  Chung-Hsien Liu; I-Chun Lin; Jui-Jen Lu; Dengchuan Cai
Journal:  JMIR Mhealth Uhealth       Date:  2019-07-31       Impact factor: 4.773

  5 in total

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