Bayer Middle East has announced the launch of Alleye Home Monitoring Sponsorship Program to support Egypt’s ophthalmologists in the new era of Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) patient virtual care.
It will also help reduce deterioration linked to diabetes and aging as well as reduce in-person ophthalmology visits.
“Alleye” is a mobile medical software application that helps detect and characterize metamorphopsia, a visual distortion in patients with Diabetic Retinopathy and Age-related Macular Degeneration.
According to a recent study, Alleye can detect the progression in macular disease with an accuracy of 93.8% and a false alarm rate of only 6.1%, which means that false alarm rates for the detection of progression in macular disease via home monitoring is low.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive disruptions in the healthcare industry, requiring professionals to re-examine the traditional face-to-face patient-physician care model. It also highlighted the need to incorporate new models of digital healthcare solutions in ophthalmology, such as home-monitoring, to meet this challenge.
With the Alleye Home Monitoring Sponsorship Program, hospitals can reduce patient clinic visits and monitor their eye health and disease state remotely with patients staying at home. Patients will be able to send their vision scan results to the ophthalmologist responsible for their case who would, in turn, analyze their results to determine if the patient’s condition is stable or has improved or progressed in a way that requires intervention.
Diabetic Retinopathy is the leading cause of preventable blindness in working adults.
According to a 2011 study that used a sample of 1,325 patients from Egypt with a mean age of 49 years, Diabetic Retinopathy was found in 20.5% of patients, 82% of which were not aware of the hazards of diabetes mellitus for the eyes.
Diabetes as a disease is estimated to become even more prevalent than it is in the region during the next two decades. The International Diabetes Federation Diabetes Atlas of 2017 showed that Diabetes cases in the Middle East are set to rise by 110% by 2045.
