Eye to the Future First Nations Eye Care in Canada and the USA - - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Lisa Penrose @penrose_lisa

Eye to the Future

First Nations Eye Care in Canada and the USA

• Integrated Primary Health Care
• thoughts and lessons for Australia

The issues

• Visual impairment rates in Indigenous Australians 6X non-

Indigenous

• 94% of this vision impairment is avoidable or treatable
• Diabetes- a growing epidemic- diabetic retinopathy causes

irreversible vision loss- but it is avoidable- early detection is crucial

• Barriers to access specialist eye health services - screening

in Primary Health Care

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Retinal Imaging

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Canada/USA

• Diabetic retinopathy screening utilizing retinal imaging –

stereo viewing- centralised “reading centres” utilizing eHealth

• Eye departments in public hospitals with no waitlists due to

utilizing “eHealth as part of everyday business”

• Referrals to major hospital’s eye departments from remote

FN communities have been halved through eHealth images

• Real time data collection tools- prevalence and severity of

diabetic retinopathy

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Australia

• Federal Government DOH has recently begun rollout of 155

retinal cameras around the country in an effort to screen for diabetic retinopathy in Indigenous Australians (over $6 million allocated)

• No systematic eHealth image transfer
• No centralized retinal image reading facility
• No QC / data collection system
• No stereo imaging

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√ Retinal cameras √ Retinal image acquisition staff training ? eHealth image transfer, specialist “reading hub” ? QC/data collection system

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@penrose_lisa