Anousha Victoire^1,2,3, Gemma Halliday², Shalu Singh², Parker Magin^3,4, Lyndal Bugeja⁵.

¹PhD candidate, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; ²Hunter New England Health, Newcastle, Australia; ³School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia; ⁴University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Photography has an increasing role in clinical documentation in forensic sexual assault examinations. In settings where specialist photographers are not available, clinician confidence in image capture will affect the uptake of photography as a clinical tool. A regional Australian health district with multiple sexual assault services, with previously low uptake of photography in clinical documentation of injury, introduced service smartphone cameras. Policy compliant procedures ensured appropriate use of smartphones to capture and store images, and training provided to forensic examiner staff. Routinely collected data around photography use was extracted before and after introduction of the new devices. The service saw a significant increase in use of photography in cases with injury after introduction of smartphones. A clinician survey of attitudes towards and factors affecting use of photography was conducted pre and post implementation, and demonstrated that once smartphones were introduced, clinicians no longer experienced barriers to use of photography around confidence and experience in image capture or device complexity, but focused more on injury factors and patient factors. Smartphones may be particularly useful for rural and regional settings where clinicians may have a low case load and no access to specialist medical photographers.