he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIn India and similar countries, the primary model for reaching rural communities has long been the \u2018eye camp\u2019 \u2013 temporary outreach clinics where ophthalmologists travel from urban hospitals to rural sites on fixed dates. But this model has serious constraints: it\u2019s expensive, logistically complex, entirely dependent on specialist availability and reaches only a fraction of those who need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Australia, outreach programs are frequent to address the uneven distribution of the health workforce and to improve access to eye health services.<\/p>\n
In 2023\u201324, eye health professionals provided a total of 48,185 occasions of service for First Nations patients under all the outreach programs combined.<\/p>\n
Dr Ravilla said an earlier Aravind Eye Hospital study found that eye camps screened only 7% of rural residents in the targeted region, with attendance dropping by 80% for those living more than three kilometres away \u2013 and among those who didn\u2019t attend, one-third needed cataract surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen, the elderly and the poorest communities are most underserved. The COVID-19 pandemic made things worse by halting outreach activities entirely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
How it works\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Ravilla and his colleagues developed a small, portable attachment that clips on to an Android phone.<\/p>\n
It contains a lens to magnify the front of the eye, two small white LEDs powered by the phone and a silicone scope that rests comfortably against the patient\u2019s eye socket, blocking ambient light and maintaining a fixed, consistent distance from the eye.<\/p>\n
The device is made in India and is inexpensive, costing less than \u00a3150 (AU$281), including the phone. It is paired with a mobile app that is used for telemedicine in areas with low bandwidth, and is available in English and Tamil.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hypothesised that a low-cost, easy-to-use smartphone imaging device could allow community health workers \u2013 people with minimal ophthalmic training \u2013 to capture diagnostic-quality eye images in the field, which could then be reviewed remotely by ophthalmologists,\u201d Dr Ravilla said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would decouple the need for a specialist to be physically present at every screening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After three hours\u2019 training, the community health workers (CHWs) screened 1,093 patients in 19 rural eye camps at five towns near the city of Pondicherry in Tamilnadu (Chengam, Tiruvannamalai, Cheyyar, Arani and Cuddalore) targeting rural villages around these towns. Diagnoses and referral decisions were made by remote ophthalmologists and then compared with those by ophthalmologists who saw the patients in person at the same eye camps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most clinically important finding was that when the remote ophthalmologist reviewed the smartphone images and the in-person eye camp doctor independently decided whether a patient needed to be referred to hospital for further care, they agreed in 96 out of every 100 cases,\u201d said Dr Ravilla.<\/p>\n
According to the study, there was substantial agreement between the two doctors on the diagnosis of any cataract \u2013 they agreed in 89% of cases \u2013 mature cataracts (96%), immature cataracts (85%), no cataract, described as clear crystalline lens (89%), and pseudophakia (identifying eyes that already had a lens implant) (97%).<\/p>\n
There was moderate agreement on pterygia (94%). The CHWs learned quickly to screen each eye in less than 2.5 minutes, and agreement between doctors increased with the quality of the images.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese findings challenge the assumption that specialist presence is necessary for accurate cataract screening. They suggest a model where a trained ophthalmologist\u2019s time is used for diagnosis and decision-making \u2013 where it is most valuable \u2013 rather than travel and in-person examination,\u201d said Dr Ravilla.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor patients, particularly in rural and underserved communities, door-to-door screening becomes imaginable.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor policymakers and public health planners, it offers a potential path to scaling up cataract screening without a proportional increase in a specialist workforce. The platform integrates with existing community health worker infrastructure, works in low-bandwidth environments, and has demonstrated patient acceptability. It is also compatible with future AI-based grading, which could eventually reduce dependence on remote ophthalmologist review for initial triage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers plan further investigations, including adding slit-beam and blue light or dilated-eye images to improve diagnostic accuracy; these are included in the comprehensive eye examination that is considered the gold standard for detecting cataracts and other eye problems.<\/p>\n
They also plan to explore AI-assisted cataract grading, and to assess the platform\u2019s effectiveness and generalisability in other geographic and cultural settings beyond rural South India.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a development that could help address longstanding access barrier in countries like Australia, cataract referral decisions made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-902065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/smartphones-could-be-used-to-screen-for-cataracts-and-other-eye-problems-ref-2.jpeg\"\/)
Dr Ravilla and his colleagues developed a small, portable attachment that clips on to an Android phone. Image: ESCRS.<\/p>\n