**6. Future**

**Figure 12.** Add caption

116 Telemedicine

**Figure 13.** Add caption

To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the child and non-offending caregivers' satisfaction with telemedicine for child abuse evaluations. However, child and parent satisfaction with telemedicineutilizedbyothermedicalsubspecialtieshasbeenpromising.Aself-reportquestion‐ naireadministeredtopatientsreceivingpsychologicalinterventionforchildhooddepressionvia telemedicine over an 8 week period revealed that the participants and their caregivers had very high satisfaction with the services received and had similar rates of attendance when compared to the control group receiving the same services face-to-face [7]. The authors also noted that due to the children's previous experiences with other forms of technology, they appeared to adapt easily to the use of the equipment used in the study [7]. Satisfaction surveys distributed to burn centerphysicians,referringMDorRNproviders,andpatients/familymemberswhereteleconsul‐ tationwasutilized,alsorevealedthatallinvolvedintheprocess,includingthepatientandfamily, felt the encounter was helpful and that they were comfortable with the technology [8]. During an initial review of Florida's program between1999 and 2000, medical personnel reported that the children had a very high comfort level with the equipment involved [9]. With the ever growing technology present in children and parent's everyday lives, it is likely that there will be both a relatively high comfort level with the equipment and high satisfaction with the overall assess‐ ment conducted via telemedicine.

## **7. Conclusions**

Telemedicine has proved to be a very useful method in conducting child abuse assessments to rural areas in the absence of local child abuse experts. The increases in child abuse reporting and lack of experts qualified to medically assess abuse cases further support the use of telemedicine. A variety of applications and uses provides a wide range of possibilities at varying costs that can be adapted by other child welfare programs throughout the world and have been demonstrated nationwide in the U.S. Telemedicine assessments and evidence obtained during the examinations have been successfully used in criminal and civil court without legal challenge. The use of telemedicine in child abuse will ensure accurate diagnosis by an expert, appropriate treatment and follow up, and reduce risk of future maltreatment.

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