App Allows Doctors to Conduct Eye Exams Via Smartphone

In yet another difficult-to-believe tech development, a new app allows doctors to conduct comprehensive eye examinations with their smartphones. It's a particularly important breakthrough for medical professionals working in developing nations, where access to equipment is often costly and troublesome.

Known as Peek Vision, the app is the invention of an expert team of ophthalmologists, scientists and engineers, several of whom are based at the International Centre for Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Having worked at ground level in developing nations, they have had firsthand experience of the stories behind the statistics. 285 million people around the world are visually impaired. 39 million are blind. 90 percent of the latter live in low-income countries. 80% of blindness could have been avoided.

Peek Vision currently has the capacity to perform a variety of tests and record-keeping tasks, including visual acuity, colour vision testing, contrast sensitivity testing, visual field testing, lens imaging for cataracts, retinal imaging, image grading and creating patient records with geotagging. Other possibilities, including front-of-the-eye-imaging, paediatric examination tools and autorefraction, are being explored.

The Peek Vision team counts a number of medical bodies and research centres as its partners. Anyone interested in supporting the project, using the app or finding out more is invited to make contact.

Via Springwise.