A popular proverb says 'A stitch in time saves nine'. Sankara Eye Foundation India's recent innovation, Sankara Electronic Remote Vision Information System (SERVIS), seeks to save not just nine but millions with real time community level data on blindness and vision impairment.
SERVIS, a unique android based application designed to capture live village level data for planning necessary interventions aimed at control of blindness, was launched this Thursday by Founder and Managing Trustee, Dr. R.V. Ramani along with Mr. Jomy Lawrence, Manager - Vodafone Business Services, Chennai at Sankara Eye Hospital, Coimbatore. 'A one of its kind program, the role based SERVIS will make the process of outreach paperless as Sankara's team of field workers, optometrists, ophthalmologists and paramedicswill use tablets to record patient specific data during household surveys and eye camps, providing instant advisories and promoting preventive eye care awareness.' said, Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed, DGM, Community Outreach.
'Being the first eye care provider to have been able to automate hospital level data through online EMR country wide, Sankara decided to harness technology to integrate community level information as well. What's more is that the information is geo tagged (GIS and GPS enabled), which means that the gathered data will provide real time information on blinding disease patterns and eye care utilization, thus enablingprompt intervention and planning of programs so that no one needlessly goes blind. 2 years of extensive efforts have perfected it to meet the highest expectation of a responsive surveillance and information system.' said Mr. Bharath Balasubramaniam, President – Sankara Eye Hospital.