AI referral may increase health equity in diabetic eye disease
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Key takeaways:
- AI testing for diabetic eye disease may help refer more patients at risk for poor visual outcomes.
- Patients referred by AI had a higher baseline risk for diabetic eye disease.
NEW ORLEANS — Incorporating artificial intelligence into diabetic eye disease testing may increase health equity by giving more patients who are at risk for poor visual outcomes access to screening, according to a poster here.
The retrospective analysis, presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting, compared the characteristics of patients with diabetes who were referred to Wilmer Eye Institute through the standard of care, an eye exam from an ophthalmologist with a referral from a primary care provider, compared with those referred through an autonomous AI system.
“We were curious if the people who are referred through this AI method are different than the people who are referred through the traditional method,” Ariel Leong, MS, told Healio/OSN.
The primary outcomes of the study focused on the differences between the two groups of patients regarding best corrected visual acuity in the better-seeing and worse-seeing eye, as well as the average BCVA between both eyes.
Patients in both groups presented with good vision, with no significant difference in BCVA. However, the patients who underwent AI testing were found to have had a higher baseline risk for diabetic eye disease, “based on both social determinants of health and systemic health states,” the authors wrote.
The AI group was more likely than the standard of care group to include patients who were Black as well as patients with hypertension and chronic kidney disease.
“There have been a lot of questions about how AI is going to affect medicine,” Leong said. “I think it’s a possibility that AI could improve diabetic retinopathy screening efforts. It could be catching certain populations we want to catch earlier than traditional methods.”
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Leong A, et al. Autonomous artificial intelligence increases health equity for patients who are more at risk for poor visual outcomes due to diabetic eye disease. Presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting; April 23-27, 2023; New Orleans.
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