SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ENABLING CUSTOMERS TO OBTAIN VISION AND EYE HEALTH EXAMINATIONS

• US 20140129259A1
• Filed: 11/06/2013
• Published: 05/08/2014
• 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.
• Granted Patent: US 9,230,062 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/3
• 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 and vision examinations, comprising:

a plurality of diagnostic centers, wherein the diagnostic centers are configured to;

transmit requests over a network for selecting eye-care practitioners to administer eye examinations for customers;

receive instructions over the network to remotely control operation of ophthalmic equipment in order to administer one or more tests pertaining to the eye examinations; and

generate customer examination data pertaining to the one or more tests administered using the ophthalmic equipment;

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

receive at least a portion of the customer examination data in response to accepting one or more of the requests associated with administering the eye examinations;

display the received customer examination data; and

generate customer evaluation data associated with the one or more accepted requests;

at least one server configured to;

in response to receiving the requests from the diagnostic centers, analyze practitioner data to select eye-care practitioners for handling the requests, wherein the practitioner data includes one or more of the following;

availability data indicating whether the eye-care practitioners are currently connected to the system and available to administer eye examinations;

scheduling data indicating days and hours that the eye-care practitioners are available to handle the requests; and

prior customer data that identifies customers who utilized the eye-care practitioners for prior eye examinations;

receive the customer examination data from the diagnostic centers;

transmit the customer examination data to the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners; and

receive customer evaluation data from the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners;

wherein eye health reports based, at least in part, on the selected eye-care practitioners'"'"' review and evaluation of the customer examination data are provided to the customers.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server is integrated with the customer diagnostic center.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests include requests for synchronous vision examinations, and the at least one server is further configured to:

establish real-time connections between the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners and the diagnostic centers to permit communications between the customers and the selected eye-care practitioners during the synchronous vision examinations;

transmit preliminary refractive error information stored on the at least one server to the diagnostic centers;

permit the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners to remotely administer interactive refraction tests over the network via the real-time connections, wherein the instructions received by the diagnostic centers over the network are utilized to control the ophthalmic equipment while administering the interactive refraction tests; and

receive updated refractive error information based on the interactive refraction tests from the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners, wherein the updated refractive error information is included in the eye health reports provided to the customers.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests include requests for asynchronous vision examinations, and the at least one server is further configured to:

transmit preliminary refractive error information stored on the at least one server to the diagnostic centers for use during the asynchronous vision examinations;

store customer examination data pertaining to refraction tests that are administered at the diagnostic centers on the at least one server;

transmit the customer examination data pertaining to the refraction tests to the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners after the refraction tests are administered at the diagnostic centers; and

receive updated refractive error information from the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners, wherein the eye health reports include the updated refractive error information.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests include requests pertaining to synchronous eye health examinations, and the at least one server is further configured to:

establish real-time connections between the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners and the diagnostic centers to permit communications between the customers and the selected eye-care practitioners during the synchronous eye health examinations;

permit the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners to remotely administer one or more tests associated with the synchronous eye health examinations over the network via the real-time connections, wherein the instructions received by the diagnostic centers over the network are utilized to control the ophthalmic equipment during the synchronous eye health examinations; and

receive customer evaluation data associated with the one or more tests from the practitioner devices associated with the selected eye-care practitioners while the synchronous eye health examinations are being administered;

wherein the eye health reports provided to the customers includes at least a portion of the customer evaluation data associated with the one or more tests.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests include requests pertaining to asynchronous eye health examinations, and the at least one server is further configured to:

receive customer examination data generated by the ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic centers which pertains to the asynchronous eye health examinations; and

store the customer examination data on the at least one server, wherein the selected eye-care practitioners are provided access to the customer examination data after the asynchronous eye health examinations are administered;

wherein the eye health report received at the diagnostic center includes the selected eye-care practitioner'"'"'s assessment of the customer examination data pertaining to the asynchronous eye health examination.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the ophthalmic equipment comprises eye health equipment that enables customers to receive comprehensive eye health examinations at the customer diagnostic centers, the eye health equipment including at least one tonometer and digital imager.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the ophthalmic equipment comprises vision screening equipment that enables customers to receive vision examinations at the customer diagnostic centers, the vision screening equipment including at least one refractor.

9. 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.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein 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.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server selects the eye-care practitioners, at least in part, by analyzing the availability data to identify available eye-care practitioner devices that are currently connected to the system and which are available to handle the requests.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server selects the eye-care practitioners, at least in part, by analyzing the prior customer data and identifying eye-care practitioners who were previously utilized by the customers for one or more prior eye examinations.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server selects the eye-care practitioners, at least in part, by utilizing the scheduling data to determine whether the eye-care practitioners are currently available.

14. A server for providing for providing services related to eye health and vision examinations, comprising:

receive a request over a network from a diagnostic center for selecting an eye-care practitioner to administer an eye examination to a customer;

in response to receiving the request, analyze practitioner data to select the eye-care practitioner for handling the request, wherein the practitioner data includes one or more of the following;

availability data indicating which eye-care practitioners are currently available to administer the eye examination;

scheduling data indicating days and hours that eye-care practitioners are available to handle requests; and

prior customer data that identifies one or more eye-care practitioners who previously administered eye examinations to the customer;

receive customer examination data generated by ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic center while administering one or more tests pertaining to the eye examination;

transmit customer examination data pertaining to the one or more tests to the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner;

receive customer evaluation data from the 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.

15. The server of claim 14, wherein the at least one server is integrated with the customer diagnostic center.

16. The server of claim 14, wherein the request pertains to a synchronous vision examination, and the server is further configured to:

establish a real-time connection between the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner and the diagnostic center to permit communications between the customer and the selected eye-care practitioner during the synchronous vision examinations;

transmit preliminary refractive error information stored on the server to the diagnostic center;

permit the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner to remotely administer an interactive refraction test over the network via the real-time connection, wherein instructions are transmitted to the diagnostic center over the network to control the ophthalmic equipment while administering the interactive refraction test; and

receive updated refractive error information based on the interactive refraction test from the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner, wherein the updated refractive error information is included in the eye health report provided to the customer.

17. The server of claim 14, wherein the request pertains to an asynchronous vision examination, and the server is further configured to:

transmit preliminary refractive error information stored on the server to the diagnostic center for use during the asynchronous vision examination;

store customer examination data pertaining to a refraction test that is administered at the diagnostic center on the at least one server;

provide access to the customer examination data pertaining to the refraction test to the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner after the refraction test is administered at the diagnostic center; and

receive updated refractive error information from the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner, wherein the eye health report provided to the customer includes the updated refractive error information.

18. The server of claim 14, wherein the request pertains to a synchronous eye health examination, and the server is further configured to:

establish a real-time connection between the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner and the diagnostic center to permit communications between the customer and the selected eye-care practitioner during the synchronous eye health examinations;

permit the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner to remotely administer one or more tests associated with the synchronous eye health examination over the network via the real-time connection, wherein instructions received by the diagnostic center over the network are utilized to control the ophthalmic equipment during the synchronous eye health examination; and

receive customer evaluation data associated with the one or more tests from the practitioner device associated with the selected eye-care practitioner while the synchronous eye health examination is being administered, wherein the eye health report provided to the customer includes at least a portion of the customer evaluation data associated with the one or more tests.

19. The server of claim 14, wherein the request pertains to an asynchronous eye health examination, and the server is further configured to:

receive customer examination data generated by the ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic center which pertains to the asynchronous eye health examination; and

store the customer examination data on the server, wherein the selected eye-care practitioner is provided access to the customer examination data after one or more tests associated with the asynchronous eye health examination are administered;

wherein the eye health report provided to the customer includes the selected eye-care practitioner'"'"'s assessment of the customer examination data pertaining to the asynchronous eye health examination.