Systems and methods for enabling customers to obtain vision and eye health examinations

• US 10,083,279 B2
• Filed: 12/11/2015
• Issued: 09/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 20/20 Vision Center, LLC
• Original Assignee: 20/20 Vision Center, LLC
• Inventors: Seriani, Joseph S
• Primary Examiner(s): Ng, Jonathan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lultschik, William G
• Application Number:
  US14/966,463
• Publication Number:
  US 20160098528A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,019 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/0033 characterised by user input arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 15/00 ICT specially adapted for medical reports, e.g. generation or transmission thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 80/00 ICT specially adapted for facilitating communication between medical practitioners or patients, e.g. for collaborative diagnosis, therapy or health monitoring

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for eye health and vision examinations. A customer diagnostic center is configured to generate customer examination data pertaining to an examination of a customer'"'"'s eye. The customer diagnostic center provides a user interface for communicating with a customer and ophthalmic equipment for administering tests to the customer. A diagnostic center server is configured to receive the customer examination data from the customer diagnostic center over a network and allow the customer examination data to be accessed by an eye-care practitioner. A practitioner device associated with the eye-care practitioner is configured to receive the customer examination data from the diagnostic center server and display at least a portion of the customer examination data to the eye-care practitioner. Customer evaluation data is generated pertaining to the eye-care practitioner'"'"'s evaluation of the customer examination data. An eye health report is provided to the customer via the network.

Claims

1. A system for providing eye health or vision examinations, comprising:

a plurality of diagnostic centers, each of the diagnostic centers including ophthalmic equipment comprising a set of instruments that are utilized in administering eye examinations and being coupled to an equipment controller that is configured to receive instructions for controlling the ophthalmic equipment, wherein the diagnostic centers are coupled to a network to enable customers located at the diagnostic centers to obtain eye examinations with assistance from eye-care practitioners located in remote locations;

at least one server configured to;

permit the eye-care practitioners to login to a network platform to assist with providing the eye examinations to the customers over the network;

administer at least one test associated with the eye examinations utilizing the ophthalmic equipment, the eye examinations including objective portions that utilize the ophthalmic equipment to derive at least one objective measurement pertaining to the at least one test and subjective portions that utilize an audio response system that is configured to output one or more questions to the customers and receive one or more responses pertaining to the at least one test, wherein the subjective portions of the eye examinations are administered using an iterative process that includes;

selecting questions to present to the customers based, at least in part, on collected testing data comprising the at least one objective measurement derived during the objective portions of the eye examinations and the one or more responses that are received from the customers via the audio response system;

based on the one or more responses received from the customers via the audio response system, automatically adjusting the ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examination; and

determining that the iterative process should be concluded in response to detecting that the one or more responses received from the customers satisfy one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected; and

transmit customer examination data including information associated with the at least one administered test over the network;

a plurality of practitioner devices associated with the eye-care practitioners, wherein the practitioner devices are configured to;

receive at least a portion of the customer examination data associated with the eye examinations;

display the received customer examination data to the eye-care practitioners; and

generate at least one eye health report based on the received customer examination data;

wherein the at least one eye health report is provided to one or more of the customers.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more questions presented to the customers are associated with a set of powered lenses controlled by the ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examinations, and automatically adjusting the ophthalmic equipment comprises automatically causing the ophthalmic equipment to switch the powered lenses with another set of lenses having a different power based on the one or more responses received via the audio response system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more questions are retrieved from a predefined set of stored questions and the audio response system selects the one or more questions to present to the customers based on the one or more responses received via the audio response system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more responses received via the audio response system are utilized to automatically adjust the ophthalmic equipment while administering subjective portions of both vision examinations and eye health examinations.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the eye examinations are conducted synchronously such that real-time connections are established with the practitioner devices which enable the eye-care practitioners to communicate directly with customers at the diagnostic centers while the at least one test is administered.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the eye examinations are conducted asynchronously such that the at least one test is administered to the customers without direct assistance from the eye-care practitioners and the selected eye-care practitioners access the customer examination data after the at least one test is administered by logging into the network platform.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server is further configured to generate aggregate result data based on an analysis of stored customer examination data for the customers and the aggregate result data identifies one or more risk factors pertaining to groups of individuals with a higher risk of having a particular eye health or vision disorder.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server selects the eye-care practitioners, at least in part, by:

analyzing prior customer data and identifying eye-care practitioners who were previously utilized by the customers for one or more prior eye examinations;

or

utilizing scheduling data to determine whether the eye-care practitioners are currently available.

9. A server for providing services related to eye health or vision examinations, wherein the server includes a processor and a non-transitory storage device that stores instructions which cause the processor to:

permit eye-care practitioners to login to a network platform to provide assistance with administering eye examinations to customers over a network;

receive a request from a diagnostic center associated with administering an eye examination to a customer, wherein the diagnostic center includes ophthalmic equipment comprising a set of instruments that are utilized in administering the eye examination and is coupled to an equipment controller that is configured to receive instructions for controlling the ophthalmic equipment;

select an eye-care practitioner to assist with administering the eye examination;

administer at least one test to the customer utilizing the ophthalmic equipment during the eye examination conducted at the diagnostic center, the eye examination including an objective portion that utilizes the ophthalmic equipment to derive at least one objective measurement pertaining to the one or more tests and a subjective portion that utilizes an audio response system that is configured to output one or more questions to the customer and receive one or more responses from the customer pertaining to the at least one test, wherein the subjective portion of the eye examination is administered using an iterative process that includes;

selecting questions to present to the customer based, at least in part, on collected testing data comprising the one or more objective measurements derived during the objective portions of the eye examination and the responses that are received from the customer via the audio response system;

based on the one or more responses received from the customer via the audio response system, automatically adjusting ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examination; and

determining that the iterative process should be concluded in response to detecting that the one or more responses received from the customer satisfy one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected; and

transmit customer examination data including information associated with the at least one administered test over the network to a practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner;

wherein an eye health report based, at least in part, on the selected eye-care practitioner'"'"'s review and evaluation of the customer examination data is provided to the customer.

10. The server of claim 9, wherein the one or more questions presented to the customer are associated with a set of powered lenses controlled by the ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examination, and automatically adjusting the ophthalmic equipment comprises automatically causing the ophthalmic equipment to switch the powered lenses with another set of lenses having a different power based on the one or more responses received via the audio response system.

11. The server of claim 9, wherein the one or more questions are retrieved from a predefined set of stored questions and the audio response system selects the one or more questions to present to the customer based on the one or more responses received via the audio response system.

12. The server of claim 9, wherein the one or more responses received via the audio response system are utilized to automatically adjust the ophthalmic equipment while administering subjective portions of both vision examinations and eye health examinations.

13. The server of claim 9, wherein the eye examination is conducted synchronously such that a real-time connection is established with a practitioner device that enables the selected eye-care practitioner to communicate directly with the customer located at the diagnostic center while the at least one test is administered.

14. The server of claim 9, wherein the eye examination is conducted asynchronously such that the at least one test is administered to the customer without direct assistance from the selected eye-care practitioner and the selected eye-care practitioner accesses the customer examination data after the at least one test is administered by logging into the network platform.

15. The server of claim 9, wherein the server is further configured to generate aggregate result data based on an analysis of stored customer examination data for a plurality of customers and the aggregate result data identifies one or more risk factors pertaining to groups of individuals with a higher risk of having a particular eye health or vision disorder.

16. The server of claim 9, wherein the server select the eye-care practitioner, at least in part, by:

analyzing prior customer data and identifying an eye-care practitioner who was previously utilized by the customer for one or more prior eye examinations;

or

utilizing scheduling data to determine whether the eye-care practitioner is currently available.

17. A method for providing services related to eye health or vision examinations, wherein the method comprises:

permitting eye-care practitioners to login to a network platform to provide assistance with administering eye examinations to customers over a network;

receiving a request from a diagnostic center for administering an eye examination to a customer, wherein the diagnostic center includes ophthalmic equipment comprising a set of instruments that are utilized in administering the eye examination and is coupled to an equipment controller that is configured to receive instructions for controlling the ophthalmic equipment;

selecting an eye-care practitioner to assist with administering the eye examination;

administering at least one test to the customer utilizing the ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic center, the eye examination including an objective portion that utilizes the ophthalmic equipment to derive at least one objective measurement pertaining to the one or more tests and a subjective portion that utilizes an audio response system that is configured to output one or more questions to the customer and receive one or more responses from the customer pertaining to the at least one test, wherein the subjective portion of the eye examination is administered using an iterative process that includes;

selecting questions to present to the customer based, at least in part, on collected testing data comprising the one or more objective measurements derived during the objective portions of the eye examination and the responses that are received from the customer via the audio response system;

based on the one or more responses received from the customer via the audio response system, automatically adjusting ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examination; and

determining that the iterative process should be concluded in response to detecting that the one or more responses received from the customer satisfy one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected; and

transmitting, with a processor, customer examination data including information associated with the at least one administered test over the network to a practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner;

wherein an eye health report based, at least in part, on the selected eye-care practitioner'"'"'s review and evaluation of the customer examination data is provided to the customer.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the one or more questions presented to the customer are associated with a set of powered lenses controlled by the ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion of the eye examination, and automatically adjusting the ophthalmic equipment comprises automatically causing the ophthalmic equipment to switch the powered lenses with another set of lenses having a different power based on the one or more responses received via the audio response system.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the eye examination is conducted synchronously such that a real-time connection is established with a practitioner device that enables the selected eye-care practitioner to communicate directly with the customer located at the diagnostic center while the at least one test is administered.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the eye examination is conducted asynchronously such that the at least one test is administered to the customer without direct assistance from the selected eye-care practitioner and the selected eye-care practitioner accesses the customer examination data after the at least one test is administered by logging into the network platform.