Distant Ophthalmic Triage System (DOTS)

远程眼科分诊系统 (DOTS)

• 批准号: 71577
• 金额: $ 9.49万
• 依托单位: OPTONET LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Feasibility Studies
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=71577
• 关键词: Distant; Ophthalmic; Triage; System; DOTS

Eye care provision is an essential part of primary health care, which is reflected in the over 13 million national health service (NHS) sight tests performed in England every year.However, the optical sector has been halted by the Covid-19, and is likely to continue to be severely disrupted for a long time, since social distancing cannot be maintained during routine eye examination. This situation is having a severe economic impact on the sector, but moreover, the suspension of routine primary eye care poses a risk of a large number of eye conditions being left undetected and untreated, some of which may result in permanent visual loss.NHS England, together with the UK Optical bodies, have stated the need to provide urgent, emergency, or essential primary eye care. It has been advised that, where possible, this service should include remote triage and consultations by telephone or video; taking advantage of technology to minimise face-to-face appointments and patient -- practitioner contact time.It is thus imperative to devise new approaches to eye health care that can be implemented remotely. Optonet projects the development of a Distant Ophthalmic Triage (DOT) System to assist optometrists (ophthalmic opticians) during remote consultations with individuals who may experience ocular symptoms during the lockdown.The DOT system is an innovative software that can be accessed online and comprises a thorough set of visual triage questions related to common ocular symptoms. Once patient answers are recorded, the program will suggest a list of likely underlying causes for those symptoms.In addition, the DOT system will allow the practitioner to display high-quality visual charts remotely on any computer or tablet owned by the patient, in order to collect some essential visual data. This is a unique new initiative.Optonet's DOTS will also offer safe record keeping in the cloud, using a secure dedicated server. This sorts the problem of safe and organized record keeping (as optometrists may work from home), but it also simplifies access to data, and the exchange of clinical information with other health care professionals.Optonet's unique innovative approach may help restoring some degree of primary health eye care for the general public, whilst minimizing the risk of Covid-19 transmission. This initiative may also significantly help the optical sector to keep some degree of economic activity during social distancing conditions. It can also be the first step towards the development of a future Tele-Optometry service.The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and the British and Irish Orthoptic Society have recently warned on the risks of using charts that have not been properly validated, during remote consultations (in home settings); and recommend caution before adopting them for health assessments. The Extension for Impact funding will allow Optonet to carry out validation studies of the remote standardised DOTS’ vision charts against gold standard charts in clinical settings. Optonet aims at publishing one of the first ever studies to validate charts for ophthalmic remote consultations, in peer-reviewed journals. Gaining academic and scientific trust will definitely increase speed to market for our project and will help its dissemination, which will, in turn, impact in improved quality of remote ophthalmic consultations to the public. This extension will also allow beta testing of the system and to find prospective partners.

眼睛护理是初级卫生保健的重要组成部分，这一点体现在英格兰每年1300多万次国民健康服务视力测试中。然而，光学部门已经被新冠肺炎叫停，并可能在很长一段时间内继续受到严重干扰，因为在例行的眼睛检查中无法保持社会距离。这种情况对该行业产生了严重的经济影响，但此外，暂停常规的初级眼科护理也带来了大量眼部疾病未被发现和治疗的风险，其中一些可能导致永久性视力丧失。NHS英格兰和英国光学机构已经表示，需要提供紧急、紧急或必要的初级眼科护理。有人建议，在可能的情况下，这项服务应包括通过电话或视频进行远程分诊和会诊；利用技术将面对面的预约和患者与医生接触的时间降至最低。因此，迫切需要设计出可以远程实施的眼睛保健的新方法。Optonet计划开发远程眼科分诊(DOT)系统，以帮助验光师(眼科验光师)在远程会诊期间与可能在封锁期间经历眼睛症状的个人进行咨询。DOT系统是一个创新的软件，可以在线访问，包括一套与常见眼部症状相关的完整的视觉分诊问题。一旦患者的回答被记录下来，该程序将建议一份可能导致这些症状的潜在原因的清单。此外，DOT系统将允许医生在患者拥有的任何计算机或平板电脑上远程显示高质量的视觉图表，以便收集一些重要的视觉数据。这是一项独特的新举措。Optonet的DOTS还将使用安全的专用服务器，在云中提供安全的记录保存。这解决了安全和有组织的记录保存问题(因为验光师可以在家工作)，但它也简化了数据访问以及与其他卫生保健专业人员的临床信息交换。Optonet独特的创新方法可能有助于为普通公众恢复一定程度的初级保健眼睛保健，同时将新冠肺炎传播的风险降至最低。这一举措还可能极大地帮助光学部门在社会疏远的情况下保持一定程度的经济活动。这也可能是未来发展远程验光服务的第一步。英国皇家眼科学会和英国和爱尔兰正视学会最近警告说，在远程会诊期间(在家里)使用未经适当验证的图表存在风险；并建议在使用这些图表进行健康评估之前要谨慎。Impact Funding的延期将允许Optonet在临床环境中对远程标准化的DOTS视力图与黄金标准图进行验证研究。Optonet的目标是在同行评议的期刊上发表第一批验证眼科远程会诊图表的研究之一。获得学术和科学信任肯定会加快我们的项目推向市场的速度，并将有助于其传播，这反过来将影响向公众提供远程眼科会诊的质量。这一扩展还将允许对该系统进行Beta测试，并寻找潜在的合作伙伴。