Teleophthalmology is a branch of telemedicine that provides eye health care services through digital medical equipment and telecommunications technology. Today, distance applications include access to ophthalmologists for patients in remote areas, eye disease screening, diagnosis and monitoring, as well as distance learning ophthalmology are all related to this topic.
Teleophthalmology enables health professionals to use eye images taken in patients with limited access to eye health care. These images allow ophthalmologists, health care professionals and researchers to perform the above programs. Required equipment includes a camera that can use optical images and a computer terminal with network capabilities that can transmit images. There has been a significant increase in teleophthalmology research over the past decade. However, differences in health information exchange standards, data security, data retention responsibility and equipment costs are other important challenges in telecommunications.
In this regard Peek Retina a groundbreaking products from Peek Vision , a company based in the UK. Peek Retina is a portable ophthalmoscope (eye examination tool) that enables you to view retina images and record them on your smartphone. It also offers smartphone-based eye tests. For example, measuring visual acuity. This greatly helps physicians in remote areas such as sub-Saharan Africa to diagnose and treat disease.
Company Eye-Netra , a Aspynaf from MIT , a device for the detection of refractive errors created quickly and accurately. The device, called the Netra , is a plastic, binocular-like headset used by an application. This device shows any refractive errors such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. The program then shows the reflective power, the axis of the astigmatism, and the distance between the pupils needed for the glasses. In the future, EyeNetra will make eye exams at work and school much easier than it is today
Mobile applications are widely available in telemedicine as a tool for eye tests (visual acuity, color testing, and viewing of eye images) and for educational purposes. Technological advances in digital ocular imaging devices are seen by many of the major drivers of teleophthalmology. More recently, emerging retinal imaging techniques such as optical coherence tomography have been able to produce microscopic retina digital images, which can be transmitted for research or diagnostic purposes. Along with systems designed for healthcare professionals, patient-centric systems such as Eye-File are emerging for the general public.
Benefits of TeleOphthalmology
-Care for the disease that has improved
-Reference patterns
-Take care of the patient in the moment and expand the specialty to remote areas
-Training hospital staff, doctors and ...
- reduction in costs
Nurses, ophthalmologists or optometrists can also connect to up-to-date congresses and training classes via video conferencing and improve their knowledge.
In general, teleopathy is a field that enables cooperation between primary and secondary care, secure transfer of information, especially for ophthalmologists, transmission of digital clinical images, diagnosis and treatment, and post-treatment care, including The most important features of this branch.
Although telemedicine is currently primarily designed to provide medical services, we believe that telemedicine can also be used directly in teaching and learning for medical students as an option for the traditional internship model. In the face of Emma Online, it becomes a platform for medical education and graduation of students. (GME)
The American Medical Association has provided schools with advice and guidance on how to develop online education, including virtual learning resources, web-based modules, and simulations. Observe and participate in clinical tasks in a hospital or clinic with physicians, residents, and companions.
In the direction of distance education or virtual education for ophthalmology students, software and applications have been designed. For example, RetinaScope application has been designed by optometry students with the aim of teaching the diagnosis of eye diseases. This program is a virtual reality program that uses real retina images to simulate examination and teach how to diagnose retinal abnormalities and diseases . This program helps medical students better diagnose eye diseases. This program provides a list of eye diseases. The user can select one of the diseases. Retina screen displayed images of the same images from the lens D 90 for the shooting of the show .
When the user moves his head, the image also moves in the direction of view. With this feature, the retina can be examined in all directions. You can click on points in the images that display labels that match the pathology and symptoms of the disease. For example exudates (exudate) and blot heme and macular hole (macular hole) , and aerosol deposition in the retina (drusen). This program includes different diseases at different stages of disease progression .
RetinaScope also has a test mode, and the user can first diagnose the disease before clicking on the image. The application is compatible with Google's Cardboard virtual reality headset . The price of this headset is very low and about 10 to 15 dollars. However, even if the student can not use the headset with the help of lenses 20 D for imaging eyes and glasses for viewing three-dimensional images required to produce measurable .
The advantage of this program for students is that when they reach the stage of diagnosis for real patients, they are familiar with all eye diseases at different stages of development. Also, in the classroom, students only deal with two-dimensional images. Although these 2D images are informative, they are not comparable to 3D images. The prototype of this app is only available for Android .
Augmented Reality
Patient education is the key to prevention and also gives the physician the best opportunity to make an accurate diagnosis based on the patient's explanation of the symptoms. Use EyeDecide Company Health Orca can bring exactly this result. Using an augmented reality display, this innovative program simulates the effect of specific conditions on a person's vision. EyeDecide can fully show the effects of cataracts or AMD , thus helping patients to understand their medical condition.