Sudburians turning to online platform to see a dermatologist

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With some of the longest wait times in the country, accessing a dermatologist in Ontario can be a challenge for patients seeking help for skin concerns.

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In Sudbury, it can months — or longer — to see a dermatologist for skin problems. The less urgent, the longer the wait time, say critics.

While serious conditions like skin cancer are prioritized in the system, patients can be left waiting for up to a year or longer for non-urgent concerns like acne and localized eczema.

“Many people in Northern Ontario experience challenges accessing a dermatologist,” Lyne Rivet, a nurse practitioner and manager of health and wellness services at Laurentian University told The Sudbury Star. “Sudbury only has a few dermatologists and access to non-urgent dermatology services is long. Dermatologists, understandably, deal with urgent presentations first but it leaves many people with non-urgent concerns waiting to access even an initial consultation.”

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Due to these long waiting times, the university’s primary health care providers have been referring their clients, who are students and university employees, to an online dermatology centre called DermCafe, said Rivet.

Rivet said patient experience has been positive, with quick initial consultations and follow-up visits. The technology is user-friendly, she added, and patients can pre-submit and upload photos of their skin condition.

Long wait times within the traditional system impact people of all ages, said Rivet, particularly students aged 18 to 24 who require treatments, such as Accutane for acne.

“DermCafe helps with this as they can order blood work prior to starting acne treatment and their licensed dermatologists can manage Accutane patients over the course of their treatment, specifically with the bloodwork monitoring it requires,” said Rivet.

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DermCafe has helped 95 patients from Sudbury access dermatological services since opening, said Dr Annie Liu, DermCafe co-founder. Besides Laurentian University, Lui and her colleagues work with other Sudbury-based physicians to help patients get quicker access to dermatology care for non-urgent skin conditions.

Lui said the situation when it comes to accessing dermatological services is a developing nation-wide problem. To make matters worse, she said, there are no real statistics about wait times or an exact number of dermatologists needed to fill the gap.

“The bottom-line cause of all this is because community health care is fairly low budget, it’s not well resourced, it’s so inefficient or not well run,” she said.

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Liu said that six months is the minimum wait time.

“I know my colleagues in areas that are underserviced, like Sudbury, anywhere outside a major urban area, wait times are nine months to one year,” she said. “My colleagues in Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia … the wait times are one to two years plus.”

Even with urgent concerns like skin cancer, the wait time can be a few months, she said. Conditions like acne are not prioritized in this setting, which is “cruel” to patients, she added.

She describes the ease of accessing dermatology care through DermCafe as ordering an Uber. Services are covered under OHIP and providers, although you need a referral from a doctor.

“Our wait times are one week or less,” she said. “You book your own appointment. You choose your own dermatologist. You connect via video call. There’s no software you have to install, it’s one link that’s emailed to you, you click it and the video call starts.

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“Everything is streamlined and handled by the platform. You just attend the appointment and afterwards, you get access to a secure portal with everything you need: the prescription, booking management, your lab form, handouts. It’s like having an Uber account where everything is accessible and controlled by you, the patient.”

Lui’s team consists of dermatologists from across the country and more are joining all the time, she said. She said she started building the business and platform with partners before the pandemic.

When COVID hit, virtual care became the norm, which helped propel the business forward, enabling them to start serving patients in May 2020. Since then, DermCafe has delivered 75,000 virtual appointments to patients in over 1,000 cities across Canada. Despite the service being easy to use and covered under OHIP, Lui said there is still some resistance in the field.

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“We’re trying to push the boundaries and we’re trying to change things,” she said. “Those kind of initiatives in Canadian health care … the government puts up barriers, trying to prevent things like this from happening. It’s really been pure luck and coincidence that we’ve been able to take off; otherwise, Canadian health care is very anti-business, anti-change and anti-innovation.”

Liu said that although DermCafe has a far reach, most patients come from large urban centres like Toronto and Ottawa. She wants that to change.

“Virtual care has the ability to equalize access, no matter how close or far you live from the actual dermatologist providing the care,” she said. “In the future, we hope to care for even more patients from smaller cities, like Sudbury.”

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DermCafe info

– DermCafe can provide virtual care for concerns like acne, rosacea, facial rashes, keratosis pilaris, limited eczema and psoriasis, contact dermatitis, some pediatric needs and male pattern hair loss, among other non-urgent needs.

– The centre cannot provide care for mole/cancer concerns, anything inside the mouth, on the scalp, severe eczema and psoriasis, medical emergencies, among other serious skin concerns.

– For the full list, visit www.dermcafe.ca.

The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.

sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca

X: @SudburyStar

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