Abstract:

Objective To analyze the quality of the image data from the primary hospitals in teleophthalmology. Design Retrospective case series. Participants 158 cases aged 60.7±15.8 years old, from 15 provinces, 38 primary hospitals, evaluated by one ophthalmologist in remote eye reading center of Beijing Tongren Eye Center in June 2015. Methods Patient data were exported as an Excel file with the software of Daheng Pusin Cloud Medical System. Data integrity and image quality of each patient were carefully checked. The rate of various quality defects in patient data were compared between <50 years old and 50 years old or more, between the north of the Yellow River and the south of the Yellow River. Main Outcome Measures The rate of various quality defects in patient data. Result In all 158 patients, 74 patients (46.8%) had at least one type of quality defects. The quality defect rate of chief complaint with lack of time length, incorrect position on fundus image, absence of external eye image, shadow on macular area, blurry peripheral image caused by small pupil, inaccurate focus on fundus image, image without cutting, incorrect position on external eye image was 13.3%, 12.7%, 8.9%, 7.0%, 5.7%, 2.5%, 1.9%, 1.3%, 1.3%, respectively. The difference of quality defect rate of patients data between aged <50 years old (36.4%) and 50 years old or over (49.6%) had no significant (P=0.175). The difference of quality defect rate of patients data between the north of the Yellow River (46.4%) and the south of the Yellow River (47.5%) was not statistically significant (P=0.888). Conclusion The result showed that currently nearly half of the image transmission of patients in the reading service of teleophthalmology exists varying degrees of quality defects, in which the incomplete chief complaint, incorrect position on fundus image, absence of external eye image, shadow on macular area are more common.?(Ophthalmol CHN, 2015, 24: 230-233)

Key words: teleophthalmology, quality control