Follow on to: Preventing avoidable blindness through smart home-monitoring of vision

青光眼是导致不可逆性失明的第二大原因。它影响了40岁以上的50人中的1人，所有这些人目前都必须每年前往医院进行一到两次视力检查。NHS每年进行超过100万次这样的“监测”评估，这些医院访问不仅不方便，而且是不可持续的。即使在COVID之前，NHS的积压意味着每月有20名患者因延迟青光眼预约而失明，预计到2030年患者人数将翻一番。仅在医院进行监测也不足以治疗每23人中就有1人患有最严重的青光眼。这样的人很容易在医院预约之间经历突然的、不可逆转的视力丧失。解决方案是家庭监测。如果人们可以在家里检查自己的视力，那么视力丧失可以更快，更方便，更便宜地检测出来。人们可以选择更频繁地测试他们的视力，或者当他们开始注意到变化时：允许视力丧失被标记并更快地治疗。风险较低的患者可以减少医院预约：减少不必要的旅行，并释放资源，专注于那些最需要的人。通过在家中测试视力，患者可以在诊所里花更多的时间与医生面对面交谈。这就是为什么在过去的八年里，我们开发了Eyecatcher：世界上第一个经过验证的青光眼家庭监测视力测试。现在的挑战是扩大Eyecatcher的规模，并以可持续的，具有成本效益的方式将其送到患者手中。我们将利用现有的资金将Eyecatcher从学术项目转化为可持续的商业项目。

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness. It affects 1 in 50 people over 40 years old, all of whom must currently travel to hospital once or twice a year for vision checks. Over 1M such "monitoring" assessments are carried out by the NHS every year.These hospital visits are not only inconvenient: they are unsustainable. Even before COVID, NHS backlogs meant that twenty patients a month were going blind due to delayed glaucoma appointments, and patient numbers are expected to double by 2030. Hospital-only monitoring is also insufficient for the 1 in 23 people with the most aggressive form of glaucoma. Such individuals are liable to experience sudden, irreversible sight loss between hospital appointments.The solution is home-monitoring. If people could check their own vision at home, then sight loss could be detected more quickly, conveniently, and cheaply. People could choose to test their vision more frequently, or when they started to notice a change: allowing sight loss to be flagged and treated sooner. Lower risk patients could attend fewer hospital appointments: reducing unnecessary travel, and freeing up resources to focus on those most in need. And by testing vision at home, more time in the clinic could be spent talking to the doctor face-to-face.That is why over the last eight years we have developed Eyecatcher: the world's first validated vision test for glaucoma home-monitoring. The challenge now is to scale up Eyecatcher, and get it into the hands of patients, in a sustainable, cost-effective way.We will use these present funds to translate Eyecatcher from an academic project to a sustainable, commercial venture.