Vitazi-DR is an AI system that screens patients for diabetic retinopathy and macular edema, conditions that lead to vision loss and blindness if left untreated. The system has been trained on 250,000 images of existing retinal scans of people diagnosed with DR. It achieves over 95% accuracy of diabetic retinography detection and reduces ophthalmologist’s workflow by 75%.
The screening process takes under a minute and requires just a retinal camera and a computer with access to the internet. There is no need for special training or retinal dilation in the patient. Due to this simplicity, Vitazi-DR can also be used by primary care physicians or retail pharmacies as well as by ophthalmologists, optometrists and clinics.
Vitazi-DR is currently not FDA approved and is not available for sale within the US.
Equipment
Vitazi-DR is compatible with cameras from the following manufacturers:
Canon, Optomed Aurora, Other, Topcon, Volk Pictor Plus, Carl Zeis, CrystalVue NFC-600
Proposed use cases
Primary care physicians and retail pharmacies
Many diabetic patients don’t get regular screening for DR but regularly visit their family doctor or a pharmacy. Vitazi-DR can be used with a wide range of portable or tabletop cameras and could easily be deployed to enable quick screening.
Ophthalmologists and optometrists
Vitazi-DR can reduce an ophthalmologist's workload by 75% and most optometrists already possess the necessary equipment for retinal photography.
Healthcare clinics and systems
EyeStar does not disturb the typical clinical flow and will simply relieve the burden off your specialists by letting them focus only on those patients identified as referrable.
In use now
Clinicas del Azucar, Mexico
15 clinics since 2016
In Mexico, 8% of blindness is caused by diabetic retinopathy.
According to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) for Latin America, Mexico has a high prevalence of diabetes but lacks awareness and sufficient services. The International Diabetes Federation and the International Federation on Old Age, surveyed patients with diabetes and retinopathy in Mexico and found that almost 20% never talked to their doctor about eye complications and 28% did so once symptoms appeared.
The biggest challenge with diagnosing diabetic retinopathy; however, is the sheer number of cases. Mexico alone has 12.8 million diabetics who must be screened, and there just aren’t enough trained clinicians to review their retinal scans. By 2045, the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) expects there to be 63 million diabetics in the country.
What is Clinicas del Azucar?
Clinicas del Azucar is a chain of specialized, low-cost diabetes clinics that provide affordable and comprehensive care. They introduce low-cost screening devices, proprietary evidence-based algorithms and mobile health solutions to reduce the price of care significantly. Each patient pays fixed-cost membership fees allowing him/her to have unlimited access to diagnostics, labs, and consultations for one year. The patients can choose from 3 different packages of varying costs and services; the preventative package for $71 USD, integral package for $185 USD, and integral plus package for $256. In the next 5 years, the chain hopes to open more than 50 clinics to impact more than 100,000 patients, reduce 15,000 complications and save patients more than $70M.
In 2016, our partner VisionQuest, brought the EyeStar system to Clinicas del Azucar. Since then, the software has identified over 4,000 patients with sight-threatening disease who would not otherwise have been referred for care by a specialist in a timely manner.