Abstract
Purpose :
Amblyopia is a leading cause of childhood blindness. Although multiple effective treatment methods exist, patient compliance remains a major hurdle to successful outcomes. We assessed the outcomes of patients enrolled in a novel, online amblyopia tracking platform.
Methods :
Inside Out Medicine (Seattle, WA) is an online, HIPAA-compliant platform that enhances monitoring of amblyopia patient treatment. The platform let parents create a virtual “log” in which they record their child’s daily treatment (hours patched per day, patches used per day, which eye was patched, etc.) and allows providers to view the logs. The platform also gives instructions for parents to assess and record their child’s near visual acuity (VA).
Providers at an urban academic center enrolled eligible patients (amblyopia patients age 1-12 years undergoing occlusion or penalization therapies) by sending an email invitation to parents to create an account on the platform. Parents were instructed to log all amblyopia treatment prescribed by their ophthalmologist/optometrist in the platform.
Baseline characteristics, treatment compliance and outcome measures (change in visual acuity) were collected for patients who had presented for a follow up clinic visit at least 60 days after enrollment in the platform.
Results :
Since the integration of the program in our clinics on 7/14/20, 65 patients have been enrolled in the platform. The cohort has an average age of 4.95 years (std = 2.55) and is 51% female. For patients whose amblyopia can be graded, 44% have mild amblyopia, 48% have moderate amblyopia, and 10% have severe amblyopia. The right eye is amblyopic in 51% of patietns.
Of the 65 enrolled patients, 12 had a follow up visit after at least 60 days of platform enrollment (average 101 days). 7 patients had mild amblyopia, 4 had moderate, and 1 had severe. Average change in visual acuity at first follow up was an improvement of .055 logMAR units (from .300 to .245).
Conclusions :
We report the use of a novel, online, HIPAA-compliant platform to provide daily data on patients’ amblyopia treatment compliance. Patients enrolled in the platform for at least 60 days experienced an average VA improvement of .057 logMAR units in the amblyopic eye. This pilot study shows the potential of this online, easy-to-use platform to improve amblyopia patient outcomes by improving compliance monitoring and oversight.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.