As humans, our ability to see is one of the most important and heavily relied upon aspects of our physical abilities. We live in a world where over 39 million people are blind. Yet studies show that at least 80% of those people suffer blindness unnecessarily because they lack access to basic vision healthcare. Because so many of these cases of blindness are caused as a result of a lack of qualified eye care professionals in rural or developing areas, the need for access to effective eye screening equipment and care in these areas is a major step in improving the lives of people in the developing world.
Peek Vision, a British non-profit, has developed a solution for this pressing problem: an app that turns a smartphone into a mobile eye examination station. British hygienist Dr. Andrew Bastawrous of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine developed the app, which can perform a full eye exam almost anywhere, bringing millions of previously unreachable patients the benefits of vision health.
What Can Peek Vision Do?
Peek Vision can help perform the types of tests and evaluations that citizens in more developed and affluent areas of the world have come to take for granted: retina screening, depth of field tests, color vision testing, and visual acuity. These tests can be administered by anyone trained to use the program. Then, the results are archived and geo-tagged with the GPS location of the patient, which allows traveling eye care professionals to follow up with patients as necessary. In locations where infrastructure, literacy, and addresses are at times uncommon, the Peek Vision app can literally make a life-changing difference for millions of people.
The technology used in the Peek Vision app most obviously promises to benefit people in places like Africa and northern India, though the potential for helping to eliminate preventable eye related diseases is global. That said, the app is not a replacement for a qualified eye care professional, and patients who are examined using the app may have to have a follow up with a qualified eye care professional for treatment, which poses a potential problem in some underdeveloped areas.
For so many people in developed countries, when we think about our smartphones, we often think about snapping photos of our loved ones, finding the most convenient pharmacy, using social media apps, or interacting with friends and family. As useful as these powerful handheld devices are in our day to day lives, it can be easy to forget that, somewhere, in some parts of the world, a little app stored on a smartphone can be responsible for helping to save the vision of millions upon millions of people. Saving someone’s sight can translate into saving their job, their family, and ultimately their lives.
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