Orbis celebrates 20 Years of Cybersight telemedicine platform, new app

Dr. Battsetseg in Mongolia uses the telemedicine platform Cybersight to consult with ophthalmologist Ron Pelton, MD, based in Colorado, about a pediatric patient with a rare and complicated eye condition. (Image courtesy of Geoff Oliver Bugbee)

Orbis International is marking the 20th anniversary of Cybersight, its telemedicine and e-learning platform.

According to Orbis, Cybersight now has more than 85,000 registered eye care professionals from nearly every country and region in the world. A new Cybersight mobile app is giving access to even more eye care professionals with its offline functionality, critical for eye teams working in areas with poor or no internet connection.

Through Cybersight, Orbis noted medical professionals around the world can access training and education tools, courses, and lectures anywhere, anytime – from a laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. Cybersight's advanced features, including long-distance mentoring and an artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic tool, are available for free for eye care professionals in low- and middle-income countries, home to nine out of ten people with vision loss.

According to the news release, via Cybersight, Orbis's team of 400 world-leading Volunteer Faculty (medical experts) can deliver training and consultations without having to leave their homes. To date, the company noted Cybersight has delivered more than 30,000 consultations to help eye care professionals diagnose and treat patients with complex cases from all corners of the world, even reaching conflict-affected areas like Ukraine and Syria.

Orbis added that the Cybersight team has tackled detailed research to determine how eye care professionals benefit from the platform. The company noted the survey showed that professionals at all levels value Cybersight and of Cybersight users surveyed, the company indicated that 99% said the platform increased their knowledge and skills, 75% said it enabled them to make better informed decisions and 72% said Cybersight increased their professional confidence.

The New Cybersight App

Orbis announced it recently rolled out a new Cybersight mobile app that provides even easier access to these services for eye care professionals. The company noted its app enables eye teams to create and respond to patient cases while offline, and automatically syncs when the user next connects to the internet.

"The Cybersight app provides a lot of knowledge, especially the lessons we need to learn more about in pediatric eye care," Dr. Kieu Le The Mong, an ophthalmologist in Vietnam who specializes in treating retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a leading cause of vision loss in children, said in the news release. "I use the app frequently to access information … and connect with mentor specialists in ROP."

20 Years of Telehealth Innovation

In 1998, decades ahead of his time, Eugene Helveston, MD, then part of Orbis Volunteer Faculty, created the first-ever internet-based ophthalmic telemedicine program. In 2003, Cybersight officially launched, paving the way for landmark changes in ophthalmic education, the company noted in its news release.

The company noted that during Orbis visits to Havana, Cuba, Helveston realized that in-person training projects were not enough; committed local doctors needed ongoing support. Having already experimented with remote consultations, he along with Orbis team members, set about training local colleagues with digital imagery and clinical history recording, the company added.

According to the news release, this would allow them to email cases to Helveston at his home in Indianapolis. From there he could send back, via email, a diagnosis, or recommendation for further tests and re-submission, or a suggested treatment plan. In doing so, Orbis's first ophthalmic telemedicine system was born.

Over the past two decades, Cybersight has proven to be critical for ophthalmic training, especially in recent years. As the COVID pandemic unfolded, Orbis was already set up to meet the needs of eye care professionals throughout the world – virtually. In the past four years, there have been more than 11 million views of Cybersight videos, over 119,000 webinar attendances and over 246,000 course enrollments.