Orbis and Heidelberg Engineering GmbH announced at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) annual congress in Vienna, Austria, that they are collaborating on the fight against avoidable blindness through virtual vision service training and research fundings.
Let’s start with a refresher.
Orbis is a global non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on the prevention and treatment of avoidable blindness via a network of corporate partners, NGOs, and local hospitals.
The charity’s influence currently extends across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
The Germany-headquartered Heidelberg Engineering is a high-tech imaging solutions company that designs, manufactures, and distributes ophthalmic diagnostic devices.
What does this partnership entail?
Heidbelberg will utilize Orbis’s Cybersight, a telemedicine and e-learning platform designed to provide free, virtual training and mentorship to eyecare professionals (ECPs) in developing countries.
Talk about this platform.
Cybersight offers virtual consultations from over 100 ophthalmic experts, online courses developed and delivered by international ophthalmic experts—with the opportunity to earn CME/CPD credits—as well as live online training events hosted by international expert faculty from more than 100 countries that include:
- Interactive presentations
- Surgical demonstrations
- Expert Q&A
How will Cybersight be used?
With Heidelberg’s support, live webinar sessions on a variety of topics (including optical coherence tomography [OCT]) will be delivered via the e-learning platform.
Gotcha. Anything else?
Heidelberg is also funding Orbis’s continued research project on retinoblastoma, which will incorporate Cybersight to investigate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on retinoblastoma care worldwide.
The project will also evaluate how treatment, patient outcomes, and disease-specific knowledge are changing over time, according to Orbis.