Telemedicine for Glaucoma: Guidelines and Recommendations

Abstract

Background: Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Access to glaucoma specialists is challenging and likely to become more difficult as the population ages. Introduction: Using telemedicine for glaucoma (teleglaucoma) has the potential to increase access to glaucoma care by improving efficiency and decreasing the need for long-distance travel for patients. Results: Teleglaucoma programs can be used for screening, diagnostic consultation, and long-term treatment monitoring. Key components of teleglaucoma programs include patient history, equipment, intraocular pressure measurement, pachymetry, anterior chamber imaging/gonioscopy, fundus photography, retinal nerve fiber layer imaging, medical record and imaging software, and skilled personnel. Discussion: Teleglaucoma has tremendous potential to improve patient access to high-quality cost-effective glaucoma care. Conclusions: We have reviewed some special considerations needed to address the complexity of providing guidelineconcordant glaucoma care.

Digital technology, tele-medicine and artificial intelligence in ophthalmology: A global perspective

“…One currently available advanced technology to address glaucoma screening is telemedicine, which may effectively detect glaucomatous changes in patients, especially from fundus photographs ( Arora et al, 2014 ). Through a combination of fundus photography, IOP measurements and VF screening, teleophthalmology can increase the sensitivity of glaucoma screenings in community or primary healthcare settings and provide healthcare access to patients in resource-depleted areas ( Kumar et al 2006 , 2007 ; Maa et al, 2014 ), and recent guidance on the adoption of telemedicine in glaucoma has been developed ( Gan et al, 2020 ).…”

Telemedicine in ophthalmology in view of the emerging COVID-19 outbreak

“…Gan et al present a plethora of telemedicine approaches for the remote management of glaucoma, via collecting information as IOP measurements, central corneal thickness pachymetry, anterior segment imaging, fundus photography, and retinal nerve fiber layer imaging [63]. This information can be collected for each patient and then transmitted to a distant medical provider for interpretation, awaiting further instructions.…”

Telemedicine and Ophthalmology Practice in the Covid-19 Era

“…Telemedicine in ophthalmic practice is useful for intraocular pressure monitoring and evaluation in glaucoma patients and macular diseases. Finally, remote consultations and examinations, instead of face-to-face, are gaining more ground thanks to two-way communication technologies in emerging clinical institutions [8]. However, there are multiple challenges to realizing its full potential, such as medico-legal and ethical issues such as doctor-patient relationship, informed written consent, rights of the patient, malpractice, and principles of confidentiality relevant to the practice of telemedicine and virtual consultation [9].…”