Create technology & health intelligence that empowers healthcare providers to deliver sustainable eye care to everyone
Main beneficiary countries:Kenya - Botswana
Peek Vision Foundation
Peek Vision Foundation is a charity which owns Peek Vision Ltd, a legal manufacturer of medical devices. Together they are a social impact enterprise aiming to sustainably increase access to eye care.
Sector: Organizational: Communities, public authorities, NGOs, associations, foundations, etc.
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Healthcare themes targeted
Stage of development:
Area where initiative is utilised
Initiative start date
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Economic model(s)
285 million people in the world are visually impaired, 39 million people are blind, and 80% of that blindness is avoidable . Over two billion people lack access to eye care. As a result millions suffer avoidable visual impairments. Those most in need are often the most difficult to reach. Getting high quality eye care to people in remote locations is a major challenge causing many people to live unnecessarily with avoidable sight loss. Treatment is often possible at nearby locations, but is not utilised if the patients requiring treatment remain undiscovered. Existing diagnostic equipment tends to be expensive, delicate to transport and requires highly skilled operators and reliable power supply. Peek helps by providing easy to use, portable tools for those most in need.
We focus on solving problems experienced in the most underserved areas of the world and we work directly with local health experts. We observe, innovate and then validate before we look to scale up. We always work within local service capacity and help improve effectiveness through local integrated pathways. We partner with clinical services, ministries of health and education, NGOs and the private sector.
Peek was formed to enable smartphone tools and technology to radically increase access to eye care. By combining with health intelligence - knowledge and experience - Peek's technology is clinically tested and designed with the users and beneficiaries in mind. The idea came when Peek founder and CEO, Dr Andrew Bastawrous, was conducting research into eye health in a rural part of Kenya. Faced with a logistical nightmare of transporting bulky, expensive equipment and a team of people into communities, he decided to capture the equipment's functions in apps and hardware. This would also enable people living with preventable or treatable visual impairment to be connected far more easily with health care through the location and recording features of the Peek system. With Peek, a non-specialist can carry out eye testing with minimal training, enabling more people to access eye care in low-income settings where medical professionals are in short supply. Peek develops apps including Peek Acuity to test eyesight, hardware such as the Peek Retina clip-on camera adapter to take images of the back of the eye and screening programmes for schools and communities.
Health professional training - Telemedicine (remote diagnosis and consultations) - Patient monitoring and medical data
100000 Number of beneficiaries since launch
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No
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evaluated independently
Organizational: Communities, public authorities, NGOs, associations, foundations, etc.
Academic entities: Universities, research laboratories, etc.
Organizational: Communities, public authorities, NGOs, associations, foundations, etc.
Organizational: Communities, public authorities, NGOs, associations, foundations, etc.
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How does one compete for the Observatory Awards ?
The project sponsors can apply to compete for the Observatory Awards: http://www.odess.io/suggest-an-initiative.html
An expert panel will study the submitted projects and winners will be invited to the 2020 Conference, at the Fondation Pierre Fabre’s headquarters (Lavaur, France), to accept their prize.
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