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Published on: December 31, 2015
Utility of the Telemedicine Retinopathy of Prematurity Severity Score in a Tertiary Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Katherine M Overbey1, Kwabena Onwona-Agyeman2, Sarthak V Shah3
1The Ohio State University School of Medicine, Columbus, Ohio.
Background And Objective:
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of childhood blindness. ROP management needs multidisciplinary coordination and clear communication of disease severity. This study aims to evaluate the usability of the Telemedicine ROP Severity Score (tROP-SS) among nonophthalmologists.
Patients And Methods:
Twenty-three neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) staff completed a questionnaire with terminology from the International Classification for ROP, Third Edition (ICROP3) or tROP-SS. Participants were assessed on ease of use, identification of progression or regression, and communication with families. Accuracy, number of clicks, and time per question were recorded.
Results:
Accuracy was higher using tROP-SS terminology vs ICROP3 (76.5% ± 29.2% vs 51.7% ± 20.1%; P = .002). Participants preferred tROP-SS across all subjective domains (P < .001), citing improved understandability, disease assessment, and communication.
Conclusion:
The tROP-SS enhances both accuracy and usability for NICU staff. By simplifying complex classification into a single score, tROP-SS supports multidisciplinary care.
