WASHINGTON–Recognizing diabetes as the leading cause of adult blindness, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper introduced legislation today to expand patient access to new eye screening technology that helps curb this tragic and preventable disease.
"Diabetic eye disease must not be allowed to blind more than 24,000 Americans every year," Cooper said. "Although early detection and treatment can reduce vision loss by 90 percent, nearly a third of diabetes patients don’t get an annual eye exam. This bill promotes new technology that will help ensure that more patients can get their eyes checked, and at lower cost."
"My proposal builds on the success of innovative programs, such as the one already in operation at Vanderbilt," Cooper added. "Their results validate the need for early diagnosis and treatment everywhere."
"It is now very clear that early detection and treatment are critical in the fight against diabetes," Dr. Alan Cherrington, president-elect of the American Diabetes Association and chair of the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Department at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said from Nashville. "This is true whether one talks about the start of the disease itself or its complications. Therefore the development of new technologies that focus on early detection is of utmost importance."
Vanderbilt’s Ophthalmic Imaging Center (VOIC) is directing one of the few telescreening programs currently operating in the United States. More than 1,700 Middle Tennesseans have benefited from the program’s innovative screening since it began in late 2001, according to Larry Merin, Director of Vanderbilt’s Digital Retinopathy Detection Program and the VOIC.
The Vanderbilt program combines information technology, retina photography, digital imaging and telemedicine for the detection of retinopathy. A typical fundoscopic camera is connected to digital technology so technicians can read the scans immediately and give feedback to the patients. In the VOIC store-and-forward process, several patients can be seen in one day and their images sent to Vanderbilt overnight, where they are examined by ophthalmologists the next day. The technology enables the possibility for long-distance screening and access to the screening in rural areas.
VOIC operates in a partnership with leading technology and telecommunications companies, including BellSouth, Canon Medical Systems, Digital Healthcare and Microsoft.
Cooper’s bill, the Diabetic Retinopathy Prevention Act of 2003, permits Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for eye screening procedures that utilize "telescreening" technology. Now, in a ten-minute procedure, a technician can digitally photograph a patient’s retina and transmit the image to a laboratory for diagnosis. The screening equipment is easily transportable in a mobile clinic and can travel to underserved and rural communities.
Telescreening for diabetic eye disease is also cost-effective. A mobile screening lab can collect and store images from dozens of patients during a day in the field, and then forward them to a retina specialist who may be hundreds, or thousands, of miles away. A telescreening eye exam can cost as little as $30 per patient.
Cooper’s bill also provides $25 million over five years to fund pilot programs that utilize mobile clinics to conduct telescreening for diabetic retinopathy in underserved communities. The grants would be awarded on a competitive basis by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The bill also requires HHS to report to Congress on the program’s results.
Contact: Lawrence Merin, Vanderbilt Ophthalmic Imaging Center
(615) 936-3247, lawrence.merin@vanderbilt.edu Murfy Alexander, Office of U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper
(615) 736-5295