Problem
Addressing Critical Challenges in Systemic Disease Detection and Escalating Eye Health Issues
Early Detection of Systemic Diseases
The first problem is that the detection of systemic disease is expensive and inefficient requiring the patient to access specialty centers and approvals… and cannot be done at home. Downfalls:
- Expensive
- Inefficient, requiring the patient to access specialty centers and approvals away from home
- Sophisticated technicians needed to implement MRI, CT, PET scan, Ultrasound, Echocardiogram, Blood draws at specialty labs, Retinal testing, etc.
- Specialists needed to interpret test results
Results of diagnoses generally are not immediate or confidential and are expensive - Diagnostic Equipment is based at universities, large clinics and hospitals
- Millions of people in USA (30M+) [Statista] are without health insurance. Worldwide 4.5 billion people were not
Escalating Blindness
- Insufficient number of ophthalmologists /optometrists/eyecare personnel worldwide < 600K1,2
- Inefficient, limited, and costly use of eyecare specialists
- Lack of cost-efficient and easy-to-operate screening technology enabling earliest diagnosis:
- Current technology requires dilation (a major barrier to mass screening)
- Earliest changes occur in periphery of Retina – demanding greater Field of View
1. NIH PubMed; Estimated number of ophthalmologists worldwide (International Council of Ophthalmology update): will we meet the needs?
2. The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB); Mapping the global optometry workforce July 20, 2021.
“It's imperative that we make vision care accessible, affordable, available, and easy to use for both patients and practitioners.”
Worsening Doctor-to-Patient Ratio
There is an inefficient, limited, and costly use of eyecare specialists.
- There will be physician workforce shortages throughout the country in 2030
- Specialists needed to interpret test results
Staffing shortages: COVID-19 pandemic brought severe dislocation in the healthcare workforce, which was already facing provider and nursing shortages in many geographies1 - Decreasing medical professional population. The US faces a projected shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians within 12 years2
- 30+ million people in the US are without health insurance3
- Worldwide 4.5 billion people were not fully covered by essential health services4
1.Pitchbook; Healthcare Services Report Nov. 7, 2023.
2. AMA-ASSN Doctor shortages are here—and they’ll get worse if we don’t act fast. Apr. 2022.
3. Statista; Americans without health insurance – statistics & facts. Aug. 2023.
4. WHO; Universal Health Coverage Fact Sheet. Oct. 2023.
Advancing Pharmaceutical / Therapeutic Solutions
Realizing improvements in drug validation, efficacy, effectiveness and safety is an unending global challenge. Drug development, from initial discovery of a promising target to the final medication, is an expensive, lengthy and incremental process. New drugs are important to address new diseases, the development of drug resistance, and our increasing understanding of health conditions allowing treatment of previously untreatable conditions. In some cases, it may not be a new drug that is required, but that a previously known drug can be used for a new purpose. Fresh solutions are needed to meet these challenges.