EyeMatics: An Ophthalmology Use Case Within the German Medical Informatics Initiative

The EyeMatics project, embedded as a clinical use case in Germany's Medical Informatics Initiative, is a large digital health initiative in ophthalmology. The objective is to improve the understanding of the treatment effects of intravitreal injections, the most frequent procedure to treat eye diseases. To achieve this, valuable patient data will be meaningfully integrated and visualized from different IT systems and hospital sites. EyeMatics emphasizes a governance framework that actively involves patient representatives, strictly implements interoperability standards, and employs artificial intelligence methods to extract biomarkers from tabular and clinical data as well as raw retinal scans. In this perspective paper, we delineate the strategies for user-centered implementation and health care-based evaluation in a multisite observational technology study.