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

• US 9,230,062 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2013
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• 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): Sorey, Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): RAPILLO, KRISTINE K
• Application Number:
  US14/073,812
• Publication Number:
  US 20140129259A1
• Time in Patent Office: 790 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 4
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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, 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 configured to;

transmit requests over a network to select eye-care practitioners to administer the eye examinations in real-time for customers located at the diagnostic centers;

receive instructions over the network to permit the eye-care practitioners to control operation of the ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic centers from a remote location 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 the 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;

permit the eye-care practitioners to login to a web-based platform to administer the eye examinations to the customers over the network in real-time;

track availability data associated with the eye-care practitioners, the availability data indicating a set of eye-care practitioners who are currently logged into the web-based platform and whether each such eye-care practitioner is currently engaged in providing a real-time eye examination through the web-based platform;

in response to receiving the requests from the diagnostic centers, select a subset of eye-care practitioners to administer the eye examinations based, at least in part, on analyzing the availability data to identify one or more eye-care practitioners who are logged into the web-based platform and not currently providing real-time eye examinations;

administer the one or more tests to the customers during the eye examinations conducted at the diagnostic centers utilizing the ophthalmic equipment, the eye examinations including objective portions that utilize the ophthalmic equipment to derive objective measurements pertaining to the one or more tests and subjective portions that utilize an audio response system that is configured to present questions to and receive responses from the customers pertaining to the one or more tests, wherein the subjective portions of the eye examinations are administered using an iterative process that includes;

selecting questions to present to the customers based on both the objective measurements derived during the objective portions of the eye examinations and the responses that are received from the customers via the audio response system;

based on the 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 a particular combination of the responses received from the customers satisfy one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected for the subjective portions of the 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 one or more of the plurality of diagnostic centers.

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

12. 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.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein selecting the eye-care practitioners to administer the eye examinations further includes:

tracking workload data for the eye-care practitioners through the system, the workload data at least indicating how many customers are currently allocated to each eye-care practitioner;

prioritizing a manner in which customers are assigned to eye-care practitioners based, at least in part, on the workload data; and

selecting the eye-care practitioners to administer the eye examinations based, at least in part, on the workload data.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the tracked workload data further indicates when customer examination data was last allocated to each eye-care practitioner and prioritizing an assignment of customers to the eye-care practitioners includes keeping a list of the eye-care practitioners that is ordered based, at least in part, on an amount of time that has lapsed since customer examination data was allocated to each of the eye-care practitioners.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to provide asynchronous eye examinations that are not administered over the network in real-time, and conducting the asynchronous eye examinations includes:

saving the customer examination data to a web-based platform to permit subsequent access to the customer examination data at a later point in time by the eye-care practitioners;

associating the customer examination data for each customer with one or more of the eye-care practitioners;

after the customer examination data is saved to the web-based platform, receiving login requests from the eye-care practitioners; and

providing the eye-care practitioners with access to the customer examination data after the eye-care practitioners have logged into the web-based platform.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to:

analyze the customer examination data for a plurality of customers in order to generate testing analytics data;

pre-process the customer examination data before presentation to the eye-care practitioners using the testing analytics data, wherein pre-processing the customer examination data includes creating charts or graphs that show parameters for the customers in relation to acceptable ranges associated with the parameters; and

present the pre-processed customer examination data to the eye-care practitioners to permit the eye-care practitioners to easily review and confirm results associated with the customer examination data.

30. The system of claim 1, wherein the 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 customers'"'"' responses received via the audio response system.

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

32. The system of claim 1, wherein the 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. A server for providing services related to eye health and vision examinations, wherein the server is configured to:

permit eye-care practitioners to login to a web-based platform to administer eye examinations to customers over a network in real-time;

track availability data associated with the eye-care practitioners, the availability data indicating a set of eye-care practitioners who are currently logged into the web-based platform and whether each such eye-care practitioner is currently engaged in providing a real-time eye examination through the web-based platform;

receive a request over a network from a diagnostic center to select an eye-care practitioner to administer 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 being coupled to an equipment controller that is configured to receive instructions for controlling the ophthalmic equipment;

in response to receiving the request, select the eye-care practitioner to administer the eye examination based, at least in part, on analyzing the availability data to identify a subset of eye-care practitioners who are logged into the web-based platform and not currently providing real-time eye examinations;

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

selecting questions to present to the customer based on both the objective measurements derived during the objective portion of the eye examination and the responses that are received from the customer via the audio response system;

based on the 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 a particular combination of the responses received from the customer satisfies one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected for the subjective portion of the eye examination;

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

transmit at least a portion of the customer examination data pertaining to the one or more tests to a 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.

14. The server of claim 13, wherein the at least one server is integrated with the diagnostic center.

15. The server of claim 13, 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.

16. The server of claim 13, wherein a second request pertaining to an asynchronous vision examination is received by the server, 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.

17. The server of claim 13, 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.

18. The server of claim 13, wherein a second request pertaining to an asynchronous eye health examination is received by the server, 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.

23. The server of claim 13, wherein the server is further configured to:

receive login requests over the network from the eye-care practitioners to access the web-based platform; and

analyze the availability data to identify the subset of eye-care practitioners who are logged into the web-based platform and who are not currently providing real-time eye examinations; and

select the eye-care practitioner to administer the eye examination from the identified subset.

24. The server of claim 13, wherein the server is further configured to:

analyze customer examination data for a plurality of customers in order to generate testing analytics data;

pre-process the customer examination data before presentation to the eye-care practitioners using the testing analytics data, wherein pre-processing the customer examination data includes creating charts or graphs that show parameters for the customer in relation to acceptable ranges associated with the parameters; and

present the pre-processed customer examination data to the eye-care practitioner to permit the eye-care practitioner to easily review and confirm results associated with the customer examination data.

25. A server for providing eye health and vision examinations, wherein the server is configured to:

provide a web-based platform that permits asynchronous eye examinations to be conducted over a network, wherein the asynchronous eye examinations are administered at a diagnostic center that includes ophthalmic equipment comprising a set of instruments that are utilized in administering the eye examinations and being coupled to an equipment controller that is configured to receive instructions for controlling the ophthalmic equipment;

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

selecting questions to present to the customer based on both the objective measurements derived during the objective portion of the eye examination and the responses that are received from the customer via the audio response system;

based on the 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 a particular combination of the responses received from the customer satisfies one or more conditions indicating that sufficient data has been collected for the subjective portion of the eye examination;

store customer examination data pertaining to the one or more tests that are administered to a customer during the eye examination provided at the diagnostic center to permit the customer examination data to be accessed by eye-care practitioners after the customer has completed the one or more tests;

select an eye-care practitioner to evaluate the stored customer examination data;

transmit a request to the selected eye-care practitioner to evaluate the stored customer examination data;

in response to the eye-care practitioner accepting the request, associate the stored customer examination data with the eye-care practitioner;

provide the selected eye-care practitioner with access to the stored customer examination through the web-based platform; and

receive customer evaluation data from 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.

26. The server of claim 25, wherein the server is further configured to:

track workload data for the eye-care practitioners associated with the web-based platform, the workload data at least indicating how many customers are currently allocated to each eye-care practitioner;

prioritize a manner in which customers are assigned to eye-care practitioners based, at least in part, on the workload data; and

select the eye-care practitioner based, at least in part, on the workload data.

27. The server of claim 26, wherein the tracked workload data further indicates when customer examination data was last allocated to each eye-care practitioner and prioritizing an assignment of customers to the eye-care practitioners includes keeping a list of the eye-care practitioners that is ordered based, at least in part, on an amount of time that has lapsed since customer examination data was allocated to each of the eye-care practitioners.

28. The server of claim 25, wherein the server is further configured to:

analyze customer examination data for a plurality of customers in order to generate testing analytics data;

pre-process the customer examination data before presentation to the eye-care practitioner using the testing analytics data, wherein pre-processing the customer examination data includes creating charts or graphs that show at least one parameter for the customer in relation to acceptable ranges associated with the parameter; and

present the pre-processed customer examination data to the selected eye-care practitioner to permit the selected eye-care practitioner to easily review and confirm results associated with the customer examination data.

29. The server of claim 25, wherein the customer examination data is generated and stored on the server at a point in time when the eye-care practitioner is not logged into the web-based platform and the customer examination data is made available to the eye-care practitioner at a later point in time after the eye-care practitioner has accepted the request and has logged into the web-based platform.