Ophthalmology exams do a lot more than determine what sort of glasses you need. We’ve covered at-home vision screening including EyeQue’s Vision Monitoring Kit and Notal Vision’s ForeseeHome platform. EyeQue’s kit measures for refractive error to detect vision changes but disclaims medical authority. The ForeseeHome platform scans the inside of the user’s eyes each day and sends the test results to healthcare teams for professional analysis.
AEYE Health, a New York/Tel Aviv-based digital health company, developed the AI-driven retinal screening technology that uses machine learning to analyze and provide diagnostic results within one minute. The retinal screening system can diagnose diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and hypertensive retinopathy. It can even detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease and heart conditions.
The AEYE system has three steps: image procurement, image analysis, and diagnostic reporting. The system works with any fundus camera, according to an AEYE Health news release. A technician with minimal training takes retinal images from each eye and transmits the images to AEYE Health’s HIPAA-compliant cloud-based system. The AI system employs image processing and machine learning to scan the transmitted images and returns a diagnostic report compatible with most electronic health record platforms in under 60 seconds.
One advantage in our current pandemic-aware is the AEYE diagnostic system helps to minimize contact with multiple personnel. This also could make this sort of screening available in under-served areas, though AEYE Health is not a home product. The company expects FDA approval by the end of 2020. Given the speed of developments we’ve observed in mobile device imagery and AI and machine-learning-based consumer applications, it won’t surprise us to see non-medical applications for such self-screening within the next 18 to 24 months.
