News

Residents of western and far west NSW can now get access to faster diagnosis, and general practitioners will benefit from direct clinical support for one of Australia’s leading disease burdens, skin cancer.

The Western NSW Primary Health Network (WNSW PHN) are pleased to announce the roll out of DermScreen technology.

Cancer is one of Australia’s biggest disease burdens. Melanoma is often referred to as ‘Australia’s national cancer’(1). Regional, rural and remote areas experience significantly higher incidences of melanoma than major cities, and rural people experience difficulties in accessing skin cancer diagnosis, resulting in delayed presentations, especially among men.

DermScreen is a new Australian-based healthcare company delivered by dermatologists to provide rural GPs with clinical decision support for suspicious lesions of concern. DermScreen utilises a platform to allow GPs to submit high quality clinical and dermascopic photos with an attached questionnaire to facilitate effective diagnostic and management support for potential skin cancer lesions.

CEO and Founder of DermScreen, Dr Philip Tong, says “We needed to be innovative, we need to think about how we can use technologies to support GPs and have developed a system that will help GPs arrive at a diagnosis faster, or support them with the next steps… having that type of clinical decision support will potentially expedite biopsies or save a patient from having an unnecessary procedure.”

WNSW PHN looks forward to further building the capacity to improve diagnostic ability of primary care providers and supporting general practitioners and communities to increase access to specialist dermatologists.