THE Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital has unveiled revolutionary new technology at Frankston Hospital to connect patients who present at an emergency department with eye injuries or conditions in outer metropolitan, rural and regional areas with specialist advice without having to travel to East Melbourne.
Eye and Ear Hospital CEO Mark Petty said the initiative will enable Peninsula Health’s emergency department clinicians who are not ophthalmic specialists to manage patients with the help of a remote eye and ear specialist when needed.
In 2014, 2700 people travelled from the Mornington Peninsula to the Eye and Ear Hospital for urgent treatment.
Peninsula Health’s emergency services clinical director Dr Shyaman Menon said the device is a game-changer for clinicians in regional and rural communities.
“After looking into the statistics with the Eye and Ear, we found that we could have treated many of these patients if we had access to this new telemedicine technology,” Dr Menon said.
Developed by medical technology manufacturer, Ingeneus and the Eye and Ear with state government funding, the ground-breaking eyeConnect device will collect patient data, visual information and images of the eye.
Together with information from the eyePressure device, a disposable tonometer which indicates the zone of a patient’s eye pressure, this data package is sent to the emergency department at the Eye and Ear Hospital for review by a specialist doctor who can then provide advice on where the patient should be treated.
