Introduction

8.8 million Blind people live in India; and about 47.7 million Indians are visually impaired. With very few eye care services based in rural areas, where 66% of the population resides, patients have to travel long distances to get eye care.

Vision centres as a viable solution: The emergingtech-enabled vision centres (primary eye care centres), pioneered at Aravind,are becoming an effective strategy to deliver this. These centresprovide comprehensive care for the entire service area population and ensure universal coverage for eye health.

The WHO defines universal eye health as “ensuring that all people have access to needed promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that people do not suffer financial hardship when paying for these services”.

Impact of Vision Centres

1.Provide comprehensive care, treatment and referral services at a far less cost to the patient and institution.

2. Economical for the patients:for instance a patient travelling 30kms from his village, to reach the base hospital needs to spend around an additional INR 500 towards travel, loss of wage, time and attender.

3. Become financially sustainable – i.e. service to the community becomes cost neutral

4. Contribute to increase of surgeries and spectacle sales –300 cataract surgeries and 1000 spectacles year byeach vision centre by the third year.

5. Increases footfalls at the base hospital for specialty eye conditions.

6. Nurture and sustain good will in the communities.

7. On the environmental impact of care front, vision centres contributes greatly to the reduction of carbon emission by cutting down the need for travel.

Aravind Eye Hospital’s 7 vision centers in Theni district (in State of Tamilnadu) catering to eye care needs of 5,36,000 population handled 69,915 outpatient visits in 2019. Through this 2,248 cataract surgeries were done and 9,608 glasses were sold(averaging 320 surgeries and 1,370 glasses per centre).

Aim

To facilitate partner hospitals toset upand run IT enabledvision centre in 12 months.

Steps to achieve the aim: LAICO will facilitate the partner hospitals through the following steps to achieve the individual participant team’s aim within the collaborative period.

Who can attend?

The collaborative will benefit Eye hospitals/eye care institutions

1. Who strongly desires to establish new vision centres and

2. Who would like to introduce telemedicine technology and improve their existing vision centres.

Expectations of the participating hospitals and what they need to commit:

– Each participating eye hospital should identify a three-member team consisting of an representative from senior management, ophthalmologist overseeing vision centre activities and Vision centre optometrist/vision centre manager.

– Leadership commitment to provide required support in a timely fashion and hold their team accountable for following through with agreed upon actions within the specific period

– Availability of funding and other resources for start-up or improve vision centres as per the collaborative plans.

– Willingness to invest on training of technicians (based on need), equipment, software and hardware required for tele-consultation and other support required for providing care.

– A strong desire to learn and improve, open to newer ideas from their own staff, other participating hospitals in the collaborative and LAICO/Aravind team.

– Test change ideas and facilitate its implementation

– Consciously embrace the culture of managing and acting with evidence

Collaborative process

This program will help participating institutionsto employ PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles for identifiedkey focus areas,strategies and action plan for implementation.

Activities: 

1. Three Learning Sessions at LAICO

2. Periodic Webinars

3. Monthly Review Calls

Besides, LAICO will offer continuous support during the entire collaborative period

Need project time line table

Fee

Course Fee: Rs 1,65,000 (includes for course fees, stay&food for three team members participating in three learning sessions spread across the collaborative period).

(Note: Accommodation and food will be provided at LAICO Guest House (Inspiration) during the learning sessions.)

Contact

Subject Matter Expert:

Mohammed Gowth, Senior Faculty, LAICO

Planning group:

Syed Ali, Faculty, LAICO

Suganya, Monitoring Executive, LAICO