ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY RECORD KEEPING IN ENT SURGERY VERSUS CONVENTIONAL PHOTO RECORD KEEPING

Objective: To introduce a duplicate digital photo image record keeping system by replacing old conventional photo-slides to avoid maintenance problems of conventional photo-slides library and establish a privacy policy to assure secure retrieval.Material and Methods: This comparative study was conducted at E.N.T department of Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar from June, 2004 to June, 2005. In this project, the photo slides (chrome film transparency) captured by a conventional camera were converted into digital data format on a compact disc (CD) by a process called Digitalization. A total of 60 photo-slides captured on Chrome-file were selected from our photographic record library.Results: The digitized photo-image proved to be advantageous over conventional photo-slide management in record keeping being easily manageable via computer for easy retrieval. All the environmental and handling losses of the conventional photo-slides can be avoided with this method of duplication.Conclusion: It is concluded that digital photographs are useful tools for the evaluation of the patientʹs pre-operative and postoperative photo-images as a ready and reliable reference for the comparison.