Technology for better eye care in India
An ICT based initiative has decentralised and improved the quality of eye care in rural areas in the eastern state of Tripura. The state project's success has now inspired the Indian government to include tele-ophthalmology in the national 12th Five Year Plan.
In order to overcome the challenges of inadequate resources for eye care in the state the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tripura, in 2007, initiated the Tripura Vision Centre - a tele-ophthalmology project that utilises information and communication technologies (ICT) to facilitate quality eye care to people residing in rural locations.
- A patient being screened at a Vision Centre/ India futureGOV
This project is considered a success as it optimally employs the existing resources and adopts advances in telemedicine programmes in order to address overall eye care needs of the state's population, at an affordable cost. The project aims to combine advances in medical sciences and ICT to offer primaryand preventive eye care services to the rural citizens of Tripura.
There are a total of 40 Vision Centres (VCs) in the state – one for each block for the purpose of decentralising eye care to meet the requirements of the rural population. All the VCs of the state are established in the premises of Community Information Centres (CICs) set up under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
Majority of the patients visit VCs for treatments related to refractive errors. The numbers of patients with cataract surgical requirements are lesser and are referred to secondary eye care service hospital only after video consultation from the VCs.
Tele-ophthalmology helps in reducing the unnecessary patient transfer to secondary care facilities. Thus, the project enhances the capacity of the existing ophthalmological services in Tripura by structurally integrating the primary, secondary and tertiary care.
The decentralisation of healthcare enabled through VC has led to increase in the number of women screened to 10 percent during 2007-2011. Total number of glass prescribed from the vision centres 43,433 and total number of refraction performed are 96,222. Total number of cataract patients identified till July 2011 are 5533 and total number of cataract surgery performed till July 2011 are 3480 under the project.
The successful implementation of the tele-opthalmic project in Tripura is reflected in the number of patients being screened during the period April 2007- July 2011 - 1,28,200 out of which 56 percent are male and 44 percent are female.
Though the project had initially faced challenges such as lack of suitable site for vision centre layout, shortage of modern infrastructure, unstable current supply and unavailability of ideal space for tower, it could mitigate those in short time through expertise and mutual cooperation from all the stakeholders. Observing the success and replicability of the Tripura tele-ophthalmologic project, the Planning Commission of India is contemplating to replicate the model in the 12th Five Year Plan.
