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Item #13
eTechnology
Increases Eye Exams and Prevents Blindness
Digital
imaging at centralized locations transmitted via the internet to
technicians, who look for evidence or neuropathy.
The
Internet is not a medical device, but Inoveon, a private company, and
Vanderbilt University Medical Center are using it to change the way
diabetes is treated.
In
separate efforts, Inoveon and Vanderbilt are expanding their
operations that make use of the Internet to transmit digital
photographs of patients' eyes to centralized evaluation centers, where
technicians look for evidence of disease. Complications from diabetes
are a leading cause of blindness among the 16 million Americans who
have the disease.
Vanderbilt,
meanwhile, signed a contract with the federal Department of Veterans
Affairs on Wednesday to provide services to at least 5,800 diabetic
patients at the VA hospitals in Nashville and Murfreesboro.
Vanderbilt
will place specialized cameras at both VA hospitals. Photographs from
those five locations will travel via Internet to Vanderbilt's
evaluation center. Similar
images arrive at Inoveon's Burton Hills offices from clinics in
Oklahoma, Missouri and Louisiana.
Four
staff members were busy one day this week examining images on computer
screens for microscopic signs of disease. Each wore special eyeglasses
that gave the images a three-dimensional appearance.
Inoveon's
technology allows patients to have their eyes scanned quickly at one
of the company's service centers instead of having to make an
appointment with a specialist.
The
digital records should allow primary-care physicians to monitor their
patients more effectively. .
The
health-care system needed a fast and accurate test for eye damage that
results from the high blood-sugar levels causing diabetes,
Leonard-Martin said.
''Anyone
who has worked with this disease feels compelled to prevent the
blindness that occurs,'' he said, ''because it is preventable.''
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FACT:
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of obese children in the
U.S. is now 15%, up from 5% to 6% in the 1970s.
JAMA.
2003;289:1805-1812, 1813-1819, 1851-1853
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