Top AI stories of 2024: New opportunities for screening, innovation

Artificial intelligence may open new opportunities for innovation in medicine, including eye care. From diagnostic chatbots to portable screening devices, AI has transformed optometry throughout 2024.

Here are optometry’s top AI stories from this past year.

FDA clears fully autonomous AI for portable diabetic retinopathy screening

AEYE Health has received the first-ever FDA clearance for a fully autonomous AI that can diagnose referable diabetic retinopathy using retinal images taken by a handheld camera, according to a company-issued press release.

This affordable and accessible solution is especially suited for point-of-care screening at clinics or at home, the company stated, and can help address the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults. Read more.

AI chatbot performance ‘eye-opening’ in accuracy, completeness vs. ophthalmologists

A large language model chatbot matched and even outperformed fellowship-trained ophthalmologists in diagnostic and treatment accuracy of retina and glaucoma cases, according to new research published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

“The findings are crucial as they highlight the potential of AI as a support tool in medical diagnostics,” Andy S. Huang, MD, a resident physician at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, told Healio. “If AI can effectively assist or even match specialists, it can revolutionize or drastically shift the current health care delivery, offering support in decision-making.” Read more.

Panel: Human oversight still necessary when using AI in patient care

An expert panel at SECO 2024 agreed that artificial intelligence will have a role in patient care but will not replace the human component.

AI’s role in day-to-day eye care will be as a diagnostic assistant, predicted panelist Jorge Cuadros, OD, PhD, founder, owner and CEO of EyePACS and director of clinical informatics research at University of California, Berkeley, School of Optometry. Read more.

AI-assisted technology makes retinal imaging 100 times faster, with greater contrast

Researchers at NIH have developed an AI-assisted strategy that can improve cellular contrast of retinal images captured via OCT while reducing image acquisition and processing time by nearly 100-fold.

“Adaptive optics combined with optical coherence tomography is an emerging technology that can reveal the status of individual cells in patients’ eyes,” Johnny Tam, PhD, senior investigator in the clinical and translational imaging section at NIH’s National Eye Institute, told Healio. “By incorporating artificial intelligence to speed up the imaging, we hope to bring this technology one step closer to practicing optometrists.” Read more.

Speaker: AI can help optometrists ‘practice to the top’ of their license

Effective implementation of AI in optometric practice provides another tool to improve the delivery of care, according to an expert at the Academy 2024 plenary session.

“I don’t see the dynamic changing with how you interact with your patients,” John Bertrand, CEO at Digital Diagnostics, said. “If we do a lot of these things, it can allow you to practice to the top of your license. Health care is a people business. It’s people helping people. AI is just a tool for you to use.” Read more.

VIDEO: AI holds ‘lots of opportunity for creative, innovative optometrists’

The use of AI in optometry is poised to create new opportunities for eye care providers, according to keynote speaker and leading AI transformation advisor Tom Lawry at Optometry’s Meeting.

“I talked about some great work being done out of Harvard, where retinal images could not only help us predict things like eye problems, but we’re at a point of looking at patterns in the retinal layers to actually predict things like cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric conditions from retinal images,” Lawry, a former Microsoft executive and managing director of Second Century Tech, said in this Healio video. Watch here.