UMass Memorial Health Care has announced that it is partnering with a health company in Israel to co-develop a new paradigm designed to prevent avoidable blindness and save lives for high-risk patients.

The Worcester-based health care system is partnering with AEYE Health, based in Tel Aviv, using a grant from the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation to develop the joint product. The Board of Governors of the Israel-U.S. organization have approved $8 million in funding for ten new projects between U.S. and Israeli companies.

UMass Memorial and AEYE Health plan to use advanced machine learning techniques to allow the product to provide an immediate automatic diagnosis from fundus images, meant to be deployed in hospitals and health networks nationwide, UMass Memorial wrote in a statement.

While over a billion people are at high-risk for retinal diseases and need an annual check (>75M in the USA), unfortunately, over 75% are not screened as the interpretation is expensive and impractical, said Dr. Zack Dvey-Aharon, the co-founder and CEO of AEYE Health. Using our system, clinicians can detect a variety of medical conditions and prevent blindness.

The system can provide diagnoses including commonly diagnosed conditions, like diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, or for more systemic issues, like Alzheimers disease, the statement said.

We are truly grateful to receive this funding that will absolutely further and enhance the cause of patient eye care in our region, said Dr. Shlomit Schaal, the chair of the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at UMass Memorial. This patient-friendly technology empowers clinicians with real-time information that will ultimately lead to timelier and better informed diagnoses.

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UMass Memorial Health Care and Israeli company to collaborate on new solution to prevent avoidable blindness - MassLive.com