10/31/2007 - Wales Eye Screening for Diabetics goes from Strength to Strength

Digital Healthcare chosen to provide software for National Screening Service

The Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service for Wales, which is Europe’s longest running retinal screening service, is set to adopt an innovative digital imaging software and electronic patient records system designed by Digital Healthcare, a Cambridge company that is the UK’s leading supplier of specialist diabetic retinopathy software.

The Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service for Wales was established in 1996 as the UK’s first, community-based eye screening programme designed to detect and treat diabetic retinopathy, a disease of the retina that affects 40% of diabetes patients and is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world.

There is currently an estimated 150,000 diabetes sufferers in Wales (about 6% of the population) with 75% of sufferers eligible to be referred for screening appointments by their GPs. Patients may choose to attend screening clinics in GP surgeries, hospital outpatient departments and community health centres, where a digital photograph is taken of the back of their eyes that can detect the early signs of diabetic retinopathy. If the disease is caught at an early stage, laser treatment can preserve a patient’s sight.

Rosemarie Keigwin-Harris, Service Director, and a member of the National Screening Committee, said: "We are absolutely delighted with the response to the Screening Service. By working closely with GPs, we have succeeded in registering 100% of the known diabetic population in Wales and we are now holding 22 daily screening clinics in a variety of community-based settings across the country."

The clinics are run by Screening Service staff who transport cameras and laptops from a central base in Fairway Court, Treforest (covering South Wales), and satellite offices in Caernarfon (covering North Wales) and Carmarthen (covering West Wales) to the clinic locations. After screening, they transmit the retinal images via a secure internet link to grading staff in Fairway Court who review the images and can refer patients to consultant ophthalmologists if treatment or other follow-up is required.

Patient access is a key part of the Service. Ms Keigwin-Harris explained: "We also offer patients the opportunity to change their appointments to attend a more convenient screening clinic - for some people this might be a clinic near their work rather than their home. Around 8,000 patients per month call us to take up this offer and we regard this as a very positive sign of their engagement with the Screening Service and their own healthcare."

Ms Keigwin-Harris commented on the selection of Digital Healthcare to provide the new software system for the Service: "It is clear that demand for the Screening Service will increase significantly over the coming years, as the number of diabetes patients continues to rise. We feel that Digital Healthcare will provide a state of the art system that meets national screening requirements, and is robust and reliable enough to cope with ever-increasing patient numbers.

"Another important factor in our selection was Digital Healthcare's willingness to work with us to meet our particular needs. Our Service was designed in consultation with ophthalmologists across Wales to be operated as a single, integrated, nationwide retinal grading programme. Digital Healthcare has taken full account of this and designed a bespoke software system that will provide effective underpinning for our nationwide Service and can also produce the data our ophthalmologists need for research purposes."

Diabetes affects 1.8 million people in the UK and that figure is expected to increase to 3m people by 2010. Digital imaging systems provide the most accurate method of identifying diabetic retinopathy at an early stage and Digital Healthcare’s software will be used by the Wales Screening Service to monitor for changes in eye condition by comparing images taken at different points in time. It will also contain a secure electronic patient records system so that screening staff and ophthalmologists can instantly access the histories and images of patients. The system will be fully-automated allowing staff to generate referrals to clinics straight after screening and reports on screening results for GPs and patients.

Jim Lythgow, Sales & Marketing Director at Digital Healthcare, said: "The Wales Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service is a major success story and a shining example of a community-based, mobile screening programme that aims to reach out to all diabetes patients to ensure equal access to treatment."

Kevin McDonnell, Operations Director at Digital Healthcare, said: "We are very pleased to have been chosen to provide the software systems that will be used by this pioneering Service. We are now working with Rosemarie Keigwin-Harris and her team to progress implementation, systems testing and staff training sessions in line with plans for the roll-out of our new system later this year."

Ms Keigwin-Harris concluded by commenting on future plans: "We intend to continue raising awareness of the vital need for diabetes patients to attend their digital screening appointments and to extend our Service to reach more patients.

"We have recently purchased two 28ft purpose built, mobile clinics that we will be using in rural communities and city centre locations where it is not possible for our staff to hold a screening clinic in a health centre or hospital. Digital Healthcare’s system enables us to operate a fully mobile, laptop-based service, so they will also have a key role to play here and in other extensions of our Screening Service."

The Diabetic Retinopathy Service is part of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Eye Care Initiative and an important element in delivering the National Service Framework for Diabetes in Wales.

The Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service for Wales is hosted by Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust.

8/6/2007 - Staffs Screening Programme On Track For Over 35,000 patients

Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Service offers unique Hospital Choice system

The Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service, a community based digital eye screening programme designed to detect and treat diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, is on track to exceed its target of screening over 35,000 diabetes patients this year. The county-wide screening programme was one of the first in the country to be launched in March 2006 and screened over 28,000 diabetes patients across Staffordshire during its first year of operations to March 2007. The Service is now averaging 4,000 patient screenings per month leaving it well on track to exceed its target of screening 36,000 patients by March 2008. And as well as reaching out to an ever-increasing number of diabetes patients, the Service has also introduced a unique hospital choice system.

The Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Service is hosted and run by South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust on behalf of the three primary care trusts in the county (South Staffordshire, North Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent). Community screening clinics are held in 60 optometrist practices across Staffordshire which are using OptoMize iP, an innovative digital imaging software and electronic patient records system developed by Digital Healthcare, a Cambridge company that is the UK’s leading supplier of specialist diabetic retinopathy screening software.

The Service is responsible for the care of around 41,000 diabetes patients who are invited to attend a screening clinic at an optometrist practice near to their homes. An optometrist takes a digital photograph of the back of their eyes and uses Digital Healthcare’s software to grade (review) the digital images to establish whether they are normal or whether the patient is suffering from diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that can lead to blindness if left untreated. Urgent cases are referred for hospital treatment while patients that require non-urgent follow-up are given a choice of attending an ophthalmology clinic in six hospitals.

Malcolm Gray, an optometrist and Clinical Director of the Screening Service, said: "We are delighted with the success of the Staffordshire screening programme and I would like to acknowledge the dedicated support and commitment of all the optometrists involved in enabling us to screen so many diabetes patients.

"Diabetes is the commonest cause of blindness in the working population and digital imaging is recognised as the most effective way to detect diabetic retinopathy early on when it can be treated. The new system provided by Digital Healthcare is allowing us to reach out to the diabetic community by facilitating easy access to screening appointments in a range of locations. We can also use the software to compare images over time to track any changes in eye condition."

The Staffordshire Screening Service has taken the decision to offer patients a choice of six hospitals for follow-up treatment although the screening programme is exempt from national guidelines that require patients to have a choice of up to four hospitals for treatment.

Mr Gray commented: "We decided to implement specialist software so that we could offer this additional element of patient choice and we are finding that it really boosts patient engagement in the screening and treatment process. Patients appreciate having the opportunity to select the hospital for their treatment and when they contact us we are also able to explain the next steps in their treatment."

Jim Lythgow, Sales & Marketing Director at Digital Healthcare, said: "The Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Service can be regarded as a model screening programme. It was launched on time, is running to budget and we understand that it is now one of the largest digital screening services in the country. We congratulate Malcolm Gray and his team, and the optometrists involved, on their substantial achievements over the past 16 months and look forward to continuing to work with them."

Malcolm Gray commented on future plans for the Service: "We are pleased with what has been achieved to date and, having undertaken an audit of the programme, we are now looking at ways to expand delivery so that even more diabetes patients can be offered access to digital screening appointments that could save their sight."

"The ability to share information via telemedicine is also a key benefit of this innovative software system. A number of our optometrists use a secure broadband connection to submit images for secondary review by optometrists that have received specialist clinical training. We hope to extend our broadband connection so that all of the optometrists involved in the Screening Service can submit images in this way."

Diabetes currently affects 1.8 million people in the UK and that figure is expected to increase to over 3m people by 2010.

The Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Service is part of a national screening programme set up by the Department of Health which requires 100% of the diabetic population to have had access to a digital scan of their eyes by the end of 2007.