Teleophthalmology: One Way To Help Span the Healthcare Disparity Divide | AAO 2023

Telehealth’s chief attraction may be convenience, but Albert Khouri, M.D. says telehealth in ophthalmology — “teleophthalmology” — can help close the divisions of healthcare disparity and improve emergency room care.

Khouri, a professor of ophthalmology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, was one of the instructors of an educational session on innovations in teleophthalmology yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in San Francisco.

In an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive, Khouri describes an outreach program that connects eye health screenings with soup kitchen, community centers and places of worship with ophthalmologists who review the data that is collected and make recommendations.

Khouri also discusses a pilot project at his medical school that involves an ophthalmology station and evaluating patients in the emergency room with optical coherence tomography. The images are then reviewed remotely by an ophthalmologist.

The other instructors for the teleophthalmology educational session were April Y Maa, M.D., Andrew G. Lee, M.D., Roomasa Channa, M.D., David J. Ramsey, M.D.,and Lama A. Al-Aswad, M.D., M.P.H. The senior instructor was Gary L. Legault, M.D.