Comprehensive Primary Eye Care: A Comparison Between an In-Person Eye Exam and a Tele-Eye Care Exam.

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Telemedicine
• Primary Eye Care

Background:

• Access to primary eye care is crucial for addressing vision impairment, particularly in rural areas.
• Tele-eye care offers a promising solution to bridge geographical barriers in healthcare access.
• Comprehensive tele-eye care data is limited, hindering widespread adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare comprehensive tele-eye care exams with gold-standard in-person primary eye care exams.
• To evaluate refractive measurements, ocular health assessment, provider confidence, and patient satisfaction.
• To determine the efficacy and feasibility of tele-eye care in primary eye care settings.

Main Methods:

• Sixty-six participants underwent both in-person and remote tele-eye care examinations.
• Exams were conducted by two separate eye care providers using different modalities.
• Patient satisfaction surveys, visual comfort questionnaires, and provider confidence scores were collected.

Main Results:

• Tele-refraction demonstrated good to excellent agreement with in-person subjective refraction.
• No significant difference in visual comfort was found between tele-eye care and in-person exams.
• Agreement for ocular health assessment varied (fair to almost perfect), limited by low pathology prevalence; provider confidence and patient satisfaction were higher in-person.

Conclusions:

• Tele-eye care is statistically and clinically non-inferior to in-person eye exams, particularly for refractive assessments.
• The efficacy of tele-eye care for comprehensive ocular health assessment requires further investigation due to limited pathology data.
• Continued research into comprehensive tele-eye care is essential for its advancement and integration into primary eye care.