How can Digital Glaucoma help you (or your patients)?

Why did we create Digital Glaucoma?

As a comprehensive ophthalmologist, I have often thought to myself: If I had glaucoma, how would I go about protecting my vision as thoroughly as possible?

This led me to the obvious (in retrospect) conclusion that I would choose to check my eye pressure more often. Unlike almost anyone else, an eye doctor is typically only a 1 minute walk away from an eye pressure device while at work. Like most eye doctors, I use the iCare designed for office use, which is the same technology used in the iCare HOME. In fact, I would perform a number of pressure measurements throughout a 24 hour period to determine my "diurnal curve." The diurnal curve is the term for the range of high and low pressures that naturally occur in the eye throughout the day. One study found that the difference between the highs and lows are an early warning sign, with large pressure differences leading to vision loss 6 times more often than other patients! This critical information should lead to treatment in those individuals and better prevention of vision loss, but if we do not know someone's diurnal pressure curve then we will never know who to treat. 

Again, I happen to basically "live" at an eye doctor's office since...I am an eye doctor after all! Almost no one else has this level of access so multiple pressures throughout the day and multiple trips to the doctor is very unrealistic or at the very least is wildly inconvenient for most. My office staff is fantastic, but no patient in their right mind wants to watch educational cataract videos all day in the lobby between frequent eye pressure checks!  

This is what led me to look into the home tonometry technology (home eye pressure checks) that has been around for over a decade. A few years ago, the iCare HOME device was approved for at home use, but has had limited use due to cost and complexity of care until recently. Digital Glaucoma solves both of those those problems. 

But back to the technology: I'm a big tech nerd and with that, comes a love for podcasts.

I was recently listening to a CEO named Michael Saylor talk about the qualities that allow a technology to disrupt an industry. Or, more simply: he explained why people use cool new things. He used examples like the internet, the iPhone, and Bitcoin, but the same rules apply. 

He states that:

"Dominant technologies deliver 'force' or create value if they are faster, stronger, harder, and smarter."

- Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy

Home Tonometry fulfills all these qualities and saves vision along the way.

1. Faster - even perfect data is not as useful if we only get it occasionally. What if your eye doctor’s technician checked your eye pressure and then told you the results a few months month later? That would put you months behind on targeting the ideal eye pressure range, yet this is potentially what we do by not checking an eye pressure throughout your year.
2. Stronger - With a 24 hour diurnal curve, we can create a profile of what each of your eyes (individually!) need to maintain a healthy pressure. When you check your eye pressures more often and more consistently than a traditional clinic-only approach, we build a stronger data set that better represents your personalized eye health. This results in the highest level of protection for your vision both in the short term and the long term.
3. Harder - hard assets in the world of money means that something is long lasting in value like gold. Gold truly holds its value and does not inflate rapidly, making it an excellent store of value. In the eye world, data must be reliable in the same way because your vision is even more valuable than gold. Like gold, a home tonometer must be accurate (real) in order to make the data valuable. Accuracy of a measurement technique is usually compared to the best known way of measuring and is termed the "gold standard" for that measurement. The iCare Home uses rebound tonometry and is the same technology used by thousands of glaucoma clinics because it compares so well to the "gold standard" of eye pressure taken in the office. and is specifically favored by some of the best glaucoma specialists in the world: Ike Ahmed, M.D. and Sayoko Moroi, M.D., Ph.D.
4. Smarter - Digital Glaucoma combines industry leading technology with expert, fellowship-trained, glaucoma specialists to give you the best analysis of intraocular pressure.

So here we have a game-changing technology and now all we have to do is make it easy for patients and doctors to use it. That's where Digital Glaucoma was born. 

What do fellowship trained glaucoma experts say?

The world’s best glaucoma specialists have endorsed home tonometry (and our chosen device: the iCare HOME) as a primary tool in their arsenal to fight glaucoma, as well as to evaluate the risk of vision loss for glaucoma suspects or patients with ocular hypertension. 

This is a powerful technology that will save vision by being faster, stronger, harder, and smarter. Let's save vision together!

Disclaimer:

This post does not contain medical device nor is it intended to provide medical advice. Medical advice is between a patient and a doctor with whom they ahve established a relationship.