AI Can Improve the Economics of Blindness Prevention in Canada.

Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of vision loss in Canada and creates significant economic and social burden on patients. Diabetic retinopathy is largely a preventable complication of diabetes mellitus. Yet, hundreds of thousands of Canadians continue to be at risk and thousands go on to develop vision loss and disability. Blindness has a significant impact on the Canadian economy, on families and the quality of life of affected individuals. This paper provides an economic analysis on two potential interventions for preventing blindness and concludes that use of AI to identify high-risk individuals could significantly decrease the costs of identifying, recalling, and screening patients at risk of vision loss, while achieving similar results as a full-fledged screening and recall program. We propose that minimal data interoperability between optometrists and family physicians combined with artificial intelligence to identify and screen those at highest risk of vision loss can lower the costs and increase the feasibility of screening and treating large numbers of patients at risk of going blind in Canada.

Diabetes mHealth Apps: Designing for Greater Uptake.

mHealth apps are not being used. Over 45,000 mhealth apps are languishing in mobile app stores. We evaluated over 200 diabetes mobile apps found in the Apple and Google app stores using a framework that we recently published. None of the apps met all 15 criteria identified by our framework. The largest number of apps fell into the category of Type 1 diabetes blood sugar and medication trackers. Other types of apps included educational apps such as recipe apps, guideline dissemination apps, simple diabetes education apps, etc. There is a need for more Type 2 apps and for all types of apps that are better integrated into EMRs for more holistic care that can be prescribed by clinicians and monitored and supported by the health care team.